Nature Red Tooth and Claw: Studies of Extinct and Extant Arthropod Predator-Prey Systems

Abstract

Records of Cambrian predation have long been recognised as unequivocal evidence for the earliest predator-prey systems. However, Cambrian predation has been somewhat poorly documented in a numerical and comparative context - a problem rectified in this thesis. The first quantitative, model-based evidence illustrating how effective Cambrian predators were at shell crushing is presented. The modern day horseshoe crab is used to understand how Cambrian prey responded to attacks. Finally, the previously purported right-side injury bias observed on Cambrian trilobites is redressed using single fossil deposits and single species - this approach reveals no right-side bias.