RECONSTRUCTION THE PRESENCE AND PRESERVATION OF ECHINOID TAXA THROUGH TIME

The presence of echinoid taxa in fossil assemblages and thus their use in phylogenetic studies or paleoenvironmental reconstructions depends on a number of factors including mode of life, skeletal morphologies, taphonomic pathways and depositional environments. This can lead to the wide disparity of preservation potential ranging from very rare finds to the one hand, to mass occurrences of well preserved fossils on the other. The paleobiological reconstruction of fossil echinoid taxa can be aided by actualistic observations of both regular and irregular echinoids, including how the animals live, interact with other organisms and influence their environments. Functional morphological interpretations of fossil echinoids are furthermore enabled by the high number of surface morphological features in both regular and irregular echinoids that can be directly interpreted with respect to movement, feeding and other activities.

Echinoderms in general show a wide variation of preservation potentials which are dependent on specific skeletal architectures, the environment in which they occur and other factors. Detailed studies are thus needed to distinguish taphonomic pathways as well as discern habitat dependent preservation patterns. An often overlooked aspect of the fossil echinoids is their significance to contributing to sediment production both as complete test and as fragmented material. In this presentation, specific studies on echinoid paleobiology and taphonomy will be presented ranging from actualistic observation from both tropical and temperate environments. Preservation patterns of echinoids including those in mass occurrences from both carbonate and siliciclastic environments will be shown.