It was originally believed that the tetrapods evolved during periods of drought, when the ability to move between pools would be an advantage. The animals would also have been able to take advantage of terrestrial prey, such as arthropods. Juvenile animals could avoid predation by the land-based adults by living in shallow water.
However, fossil and geological evidence tells us that the early tetrapods lived in lagoons in tropical regions, so that drought was not an issue. They were unlikely to be feeding on land: arthropods are small and fast-moving, unlikely prey for large, sluggish amphibians. But amphibians that laid their eggs on land, rather than in water, would be at a selective advantage, avoiding predation by aquatic vertebrates (such as other amphibians and fish) on gametes, eggs and hatchlings.
Even today some amphibians e.g. the Eleutherodactylid frogs of Australia and Indonesia lay their eggs in soil on the land. However, they must still be in a moist environment, and the size of the egg is restricted to less than 1.5cm in diameter. This is because the egg is dependent on diffusion alone for gas exchange, and means that the embryo must develop rapidly into a food-seeking larval form rather than undergo prolonged development within the egg.
In the Devonian seas, brachiopods had become a dominant invertebrate group, while the fish continued to evolve, with sharks becoming the dominant marine vertebrates. The placoderms and acanthodian fish were quite diverse during the Devonian, but their numbers then dwindled rapidly and both groups became extinct by the end of the Carboniferous period. Lobe-finned fish also peaked in numbers during the Devonian.
0 comments:
Post a Comment