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      The Paradise Lost of Milia (Grevena, Greece; Late Pliocene, Early Villafranchian, MN15/MN16a): Faunal Composition and Diversity

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      Quaternary
      MDPI AG

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          Abstract

          (1) Background: Over the last decades, important fossil records of Late Pliocene mammals and reptiles have been unearthed in Milia, Grevena (N Greece). This assemblage shows a remarkable composition and diversity, including the partial skeletons of mastodons that reached record-breaking sizes, abundant rhinos—the first occurrence of this species in Greece—and some new species; (2) Methods: We perform a thorough quantitative analysis of the recovered assemblage, presenting the information of the various collection spots in Milia, and calculate various biodiversity indices for each spot; (3) Results: Our research has revealed the vast majority of expected taxa in the assemblage. We argue that the various sub-localities in Milia could be grouped into a larger, composite assemblage representing a short period. We analyze the diversity changes through the various localities in Milia and highlight potential barriers that could affect the distribution of taxa; (4) Conclusions: We re-affirm the Early Villafranchian affinities of the fauna. In particular, Milia should date at MN16a, with a surprising presence of some more archaic, Ruscinian taxa. The fossils of Milia depict a Late Pliocene paradise in the Southern Balkans; a paradise, unfortunately, lost with the onset of the dramatic climate changes of the Quaternary.

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          Measuring beta diversity for presence-absence data

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            Alpha, beta, or gamma: where does all the diversity go?

            Global taxonomic richness is affected by variation in three components: within-community, or alpha, diversity; between-community, or beta, diversity; and between-region, or gamma, diversity. A data set consisting of 505 faunal lists distributed among 40 stratigraphic intervals and six environmental zones was used to investigate how variation in alpha and beta diversity influenced global diversity through the Paleozoic, and especially during the Ordovician radiations. As first shown by Bambach (1977), alpha diversity increased by 50 to 70 percent in offshore marine environments during the Ordovician and then remained essentially constant for the remainder of the Paleozoic. The increase is insufficient, however, to account for the 300 percent rise observed in global generic diversity. It is shown that beta diversity among level, soft-bottom communities also increased significantly during the early Paleozoic. This change is related to enhanced habitat selection, and presumably increased overall specialization, among diversifying taxa during the Ordovician radiations. Combined with alpha diversity, the measured change in beta diversity still accounts for only about half of the increase in global diversity. Other sources of increase are probably not related to variation in gamma diversity but rather to appearance and/or expansion of organic reefs, hardground communities, bryozoan thickets, and crinoid gardens during the Ordovician.
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              Counting Individuals in Mammalian Fossil Assemblages from Fluvial Environments

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Quaternary
                Quaternary
                MDPI AG
                2571-550X
                September 2018
                August 09 2018
                : 1
                : 2
                : 13
                Article
                10.3390/quat1020013
                0c09751e-13b1-47ed-ba74-964f269141a4
                © 2018

                https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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