Re: Testing competitive exclusion in birds, bats and pterosaurs

[jrc <jrccea@bellsouth.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Guy Leahy" <xrciseguy@sbcglobal.net>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 1:53 PM
Subject: Testing competitive exclusion in birds, bats and pterosaurs


> Neither birds nor
> bats entered pterosaur morphospace across the
> Cretaceous-Paleogene (Tertiary) extinction. Bats plot
> in a separate area from birds, and have a
> significantly smaller morphological range than either
> birds or pterosaurs. On the basis of these results,
> competitive exclusion among the three groups is not
> supported.

Birds developed the specializations for marine soaring flight within 5 
million years of the demise of pterosaurs (different requirements from 
terrestrial soaring).  I think a speculative case could be made that 
pterosaurs may have been excluding birds from this niche.  Note also that 
there is still no consensus that all or any pterosaurs had a wing-hindlimb 
connection.  A universal wing-hindlimb connection in all species implies 
that pterosaurs were specialized for terrestrial soaring.  Unusual in 
animals that seem to have been mostly fish eaters.
JimC