Ancient amphibians bounced back from the Earth’s biggest mass extinction by utilizing freshwater prey, research suggests

The ancient frog parent survived the aftermath of the species’ biggest mass extinction by eating freshwater prey that was discovered by Bristolian scholars, avoiding terrestrial predators.

Their findings published in the Open Science of the Journal of the Royal Society of Post-Permian Temnospondil Restoration Ecology – Large Triassic Extinctions, suggest that amphibian success lies in generalist feeding ecology, suggesting that the array of environmental changes can feed a variety of prey despite the array of all three environmental changes.

A broader study of Triassic ecosystems also shows that their preferred freshwater habitat provides relatively stable and diverse food resources, allowing them to thrive while they protect the availability of small, unstable resources on the land.

The 252 million-year-old Endopermian mass extinction event was the largest ever, characterized by 90% loss of species. A key study was to focus on the survivors and their fate in the Triassic, a time span that follows the Permian period.

“One of the great mysteries was the survival and prosperity of a major group of amphibians called temnospondils,” explained Aamir Mehmoud, the lead author of the School of Biological Sciences in Bristol.

“These were predatory animals that ate fish and other prey but were primarily water-related, like modern amphibians such as frogs and salamanders. I know that the weather was hotter since then.

The early Triassic period was a period of repeated volcanic activity, leading to a long stage of global warming, motivation, reduced atmospheric oxygen, acid rain, and widespread wildfires, creating a state of hostility that made the tropical lack of animal life. This “tropical dead zone” dramatically affected the distribution of both marine and terrestrial organisms.

Co-author Dr. Suresh Singh said, “We wanted to collect data on the 100 Temnospondyls that lived throughout the Triassic period and see how their ecology changed.

“We measured the size and characteristics of the skull and teeth that tell us about their function.”

“To our surprise, we discovered that they weren’t much different due to the crisis,” said co-author Dr. Armin Elszler. “The Temnospondils exhibited the same range of body sizes as the Permian, some of them small and insect-eating, while others were larger. These larger forms included long sunning animals that trapped fish and vast generalist feeders.

“However, what’s unusual is that their body size and functional diversity expanded about five million years after the crisis and then returned.”

There is evidence that due to severe global warming in the first 5 million years of the Triassic, life on land and on seas has left the tropical region to avoid fever.

Professor Mike Benton said, “Our work shows that Temnospondil was able to cross the tropical dead zone unexpectedly.

“The fossils are known from South Africa and South Africa and Australia, North America, Europe and Russia. Temnospondil must have been crissing the tropical zone during the cool episode.”

Amir concluded that “the explosion of success in the early Triassic was not tracked, perhaps due to the ability to eat most prey animals, perhaps due to low food requirements, and when dinosaur ancestors and mammalian ancestors began to diversify in the intermittent triassium.”