Hierarchical biota-level and taxonomic controls on the chemistry of fossil melanosomes revealed using synchrotron X-ray fluorescence

Rossi, Valentina; Webb, Samuel M.; McNamara, Maria E.

Hierarchical biota-level and taxonomic controls on the chemistry of fossil melanosomes revealed using synchrotron X-ray fluorescence

dc.contributor.author	Rossi, Valentina
dc.contributor.author	Webb, Samuel M.
dc.contributor.author	McNamara, Maria E.
dc.contributor.funder	European Research Council	en
dc.contributor.funder	U.S. Department of Energy	en
dc.contributor.funder	Horizon 2020	en
dc.date.accessioned	2021-09-09T12:11:14Z
dc.date.available	2021-09-09T12:11:14Z
dc.date.issued	2020-06-02
dc.date.updated	2021-09-07T10:26:57Z
dc.description.abstract	Fossil melanosomes, micron-sized granules rich in melanin in vivo, provide key information for investigations of the original coloration, taxonomy and internal anatomy of fossil vertebrates. Such studies rely, in part, on analysis of the inorganic chemistry of preserved melanosomes and an understanding of melanosome chemical taphonomy. The extent to which the preserved chemistry of fossil melanosomes is biased by biotic and abiotic factors is, however, unknown. Here we report the discovery of hierarchical controls on the inorganic chemistry of melanosomes from fossil vertebrates from nine biotas. The chemical data are dominated by a strong biota-level signal, indicating that the primary taphonomic control is the diagenetic history of the host sediment. This extrinsic control is superimposed by a biological, tissue-level control; tissue-specific chemical variation is most likely to survive in fossils where the inorganic chemistry of preserved melanosomes is distinct from that of the host sediment. Comparative analysis of our data for fossil and modern amphibians reveals that most fossil specimens show tissue-specific melanosome chemistries that differ from those of extant analogues, strongly suggesting alteration of original melanosome chemistry. Collectively, these findings form a predictive tool for the identification of fossil deposits with well-preserved melanosomes amenable to studies of fossil colour and anatomy.	en
dc.description.sponsorship	U.S. Department of Energy (Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under contract DE-AC02–76SF00515, under proposal 5072)	en
dc.description.status	Peer reviewed	en
dc.description.version	Published Version	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.articleid	8970	en
dc.identifier.citation	Rossi, V., Webb, S. M. and McNamara, M. E. (2020) 'Hierarchical biota-level and taxonomic controls on the chemistry of fossil melanosomes revealed using synchrotron X-ray fluorescence', Scientific Reports, 10(1), 8970 (10 pp). doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-65868-3	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.1038/s41598-020-65868-3	en
dc.identifier.endpage	10	en
dc.identifier.issn	2045-2322
dc.identifier.journaltitle	Scientific Reports	en
dc.identifier.startpage	1	en
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10468/11858
dc.identifier.volume	10	en
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.publisher	Springer Nature	en
dc.relation.project	info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020::ERC::ERC-STG/637691/EU/Animal coloration through deep time: evolutionary novelty, homology and taphonomy/ANICOLEVO	en
dc.relation.uri	https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65868-3
dc.rights	© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.	en
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/	en
dc.subject	Melanosome chemistry	en
dc.subject	Fossil colour	en
dc.subject	Fossils	en
dc.subject	Melanosomes	en
dc.subject	Fossil biotas	en
dc.title	Hierarchical biota-level and taxonomic controls on the chemistry of fossil melanosomes revealed using synchrotron X-ray fluorescence	en
dc.type	Article (peer-reviewed)	en