ICHNOLOGY: SO MUCH MORE THAN WORMS IN DIRT

The term ichnology usually conjures up images of infaunal or benthic marine invertebrates and detailed descriptions of trace morphology, controlled by trace-maker anatomy and substrate. Although nonmarine groups, such as insects and dinosaurs, are heavily studied, ichnology could branch out even further. The ichnological worm would benefit from crawling out of its marine muds and sands to observe the greater scope of a field that includes vertebrates and invertebrates, from mammals to ameoba, on land and in the water. There is a variety of modern organisms an ichnologist can study in a vast array of settings, and studies of movement and traces across phyla, combined with studies of the ichnofossil record, could do much to shed light on behavioral evolution. This multifaceted approach is being applied to the evolution of patch foraging behavior during the Cambrian substrate revolution. A series of controlled experiments examines basic patch foraging behavior and movement styles in modern vertebrates and invertebrates. If the presence or absence of a resource has a direct effect on the way an organism moves, then it should be detectable in ichnofossils, regardless of trace-maker. The evolution of behavior and movement in response to changing resource distribution should therefore be preserved in the ichnofossil record.