Trilobite paleobiology: Past, present, and future

Abstract

The first major international trilobite conference (which also dealt with related arthropod groups) was convened by David Bruton in Oslo in 1973. That meeting resulted in a 467 page proceedings volume (Martinsson, 1975) that has become an indispensible reference on arthropod paleobiology. With its abundance of high-quality empirical work and influential ideas, the ongoing utility of “Fossils and Strata 4” is assured, yet it is also a fascinating microcosm of the themes and concerns of paleontology as a whole a quarter of a century ago. Paleoecology blossomed in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Autecology, and particularly functional morphology, dominates the volume, accounting for about one-third of the contributions. Plate tectonics was a relatively recent development in 1973 and, following the lead of Whittington and Hughes (1972), several papers tackled trilobite paleobiogeography. They vary from a bold attempt to determine oceanic circulation through the Ordovician by Ross to more conventional studies of biogeographic distribution that were aimed at providing further support for concepts of continental drift. There was a burgeoning interest in community paleoecology, and Richard Fortey's (1975) now-classic paper on the Early Ordovician faunas of Spitsbergen was the first to define trilobite “communities.” The volume was rounded out by diverse papers on trilobite anatomy based on material from the Burgess Shale and Beecher's Trilobite Bed, the microstructure of the trilobite cuticle, trilobites eyes, high level classification of trilobites, and various evolutionary themes (character displacement in agnostoids; adaptive radiation in Cambrian trilobites).