STAYING IN SHAPE: THE EFFECTS OF PREDATION ON MARINE GASTROPOD MORPHOLOGY

Predation can strongly influence the adaptations of prey organisms through time. Prey species must adapt (either morphologically or behaviorally) to overcome the pressures exerted on them by predation, or risk being eaten. The shells of marine gastropods are an important anti-predatory defense and shell shape is controlled by a variety of factors including developmental constraints, the costs of adaptation, and both biotic and abiotic environmental pressures.

While the relative importance of these different factors may be difficult to assess, levels of predation intensity in fossil and Recent populations can be assessed by studying the record of repair scars and drill holes. This study employed geometric morphometric techniques to characterize shape in populations of fossil and Recent marine gastropods. Estimates of predation intensity generated by examination of repair scar data was used to determine if increasing levels of predation correlated with increased or decreased morphological variability. Correlations between predation intensity and morphological variability may have important implications for both the generation of new morphological variability and the maintenance and generation of diversity.