Taphonomic experiments resolve controls on the preservation of melanosomes and keratinous tissues in feathers

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dc.contributor.authorSlater, Tiffany S.
dc.contributor.authorMcNamara, Maria E.
dc.contributor.authorOrr, Patrick J.
dc.contributor.authorFoley, Tara B.
dc.contributor.authorIto, Shosuke
dc.contributor.authorWakamatsu, Kazumasa
dc.contributor.funderEuropean Research Councilen
dc.date.accessioned2019-10-23T03:47:52Z
dc.date.available2019-10-23T03:47:52Z
dc.date.issued2019-09-19
dc.description.abstractFossils are a key source of data on the evolution of feather structure and function through deep time, but their ability to resolve macroevolutionary questions is compromised by an incomplete understanding of their taphonomy. Critically, the relative preservation potential of two key feather components, melanosomes and keratinous tissue, is not fully resolved. Recent studies suggesting that melanosomes are preferentially preserved conflict with observations that melanosomes preserve in fossil feathers as external moulds in an organic matrix. To date, there is no model to explain the latter mode of melanosome preservation. We addressed these issues by degrading feathers in systematic taphonomic experiments incorporating decay, maturation and oxidation in isolation and combination. Our results reveal that the production of mouldic melanosomes requires interactions with an oxidant and is most likely to occur prior to substantial maturation. This constrains the taphonomic conditions under which melanosomes are likely to be fossilized. Critically, our experiments also confirm that keratinous feather structures have a higher preservation potential than melanosomes under a range of diagenetic conditions, supporting hitherto controversial hypotheses that fossil feathers can retain degraded keratinous structures.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionPublished Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationSlater, T. S., McNamara, M. E., Orr, P. J., Foley, T. B., Ito, S. and Wakamatsu, K. 'Taphonomic experiments resolve controls on the preservation of melanosomes and keratinous tissues in feathers', Palaeontology, [In press]. DOI: 10.1111/pala.12445en
dc.identifier.doi10.1111/pala.12445en
dc.identifier.endpage13en
dc.identifier.issn0031-0239
dc.identifier.journaltitlePaleontologyen
dc.identifier.startpage1en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/8814
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherWileyen
dc.relation.projectinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020::ERC::ERC-STG/637691/EU/Animal coloration through deep time: evolutionary novelty, homology and taphonomy/ANICOLEVOen
dc.relation.urihttps://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/pala.12445#
dc.rights©The Authors. Palaeontology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Palaeontological Association This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.en
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/en
dc.subjectMouldic melanosomeen
dc.subjectFossil colouren
dc.subjectFossil featheren
dc.subjectExperimental taphonomyen
dc.subjectMelaninen
dc.subjectKeratinen
dc.titleTaphonomic experiments resolve controls on the preservation of melanosomes and keratinous tissues in feathersen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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