Dinosaurs on the road to dominance: discoveries from Silesia and the Swietokrzyskie Mountains
A research team from Poland, including Prof. Leszek Marynowski and Zuzanna Warzyniak, PhD, from the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of Silesia in Katowice, as well as scholars from Sweden, analysed over 500 coprolites and other fossils containing food residues to recreate food networks from more than 200 million years ago. Research carried out in the Polish Basin, covering the areas of Silesia and the Swietokrzyskie Mountains, has provided new information on the evolution of dinosaurs and their path to dominance on land.
Studies have shown that climatic changes and vegetation transformations in the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic period created conditions conducive to the gradual occupation of ecological niches by dinosaurs. Dinosaurs began their evolution as small, omnivorous organisms and their evolutionary success proceeded in stages, leading to the emergence of giant herbivores and carnivores.
The team also found that a change in the diversity of fossil food content, such as fish, insect and plant remains, reflected the evolution of dinosaurs and the transformation of ecosystems. For example, the Late Triassic was dominated by temnospondyls and phytosaurs, which gave way to dinosaurs when the climate changed to a wetter climate.
These findings shed new light on the processes that led to the formation of complex dinosaur-dominated ecosystems, opening up new perspectives in the study of their evolution and adaptation to changing environmental conditions.
The article was published in the prestigious journal Nature.
Dinosaur. Photo by Gazeta Uniwersytecka UŚ (USil Magazine)