Paleontology - Dinosaurs indecline long before mass extinction? Ludwig Maximilians University

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http://atomiumculture.eu/content/paleontology-dinosaurs-indecline-long-mass-extinction

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Despite years of intensive research about the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs about 65.5 million years ago, a fundamental question remains: were dinosaurs already undergoing a long-term decline before an asteroid hit at the end of the Cretaceous? A study led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH)and LMU Munich gives a multifaceted answer.

The findings, published online today in Nature Communications, suggest that in general, large-bodied, “bulk-feeding” herbivores were declining during the last 12 million years of the Cretaceous. But carnivorous dinosaurs and mid-sized herbivores were not. In some cases, geographic location might have been a factor in the animals’ biological success.

“Few issues in the history of paleontology have fueled as much research and popular fascination as the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs,” said lead author Steve Brusatte, a Columbia University graduate student who is affiliated with the AMNH’s Division of Paleontology. “Did sudden volcanic eruptions or an asteroid impact strike down dinosaurs during their prime? We found that it was probably much more complex than that, and maybe not the sudden catastrophe that is often portrayed.”

Brusatte, Richard Butler of the GeoBio-Center ofLMU Munich, Albert Prieto-Márquez from the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology, and Mark Norell, chair of the AMNH’s Division of Paleontology, are the first to look at dinosaur extinction based on “morphological disparity”—the variability of body structure within particular groups of dinosaurs. Previous research was based almost exclusively on estimates of changes in the number of dinosaur species over time. However, it can be very difficult to do this accurately.

[COLGATE4]

1. Maybe it's because the Fundies' forbearers

killed and et too many of the big 'uns?