Pterosaur dietary hypotheses: a review of ideas and approaches
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Pterosaurs are an extinct group of Mesozoic flying reptiles, whose fossil record extends from approximately 210 to 66 million years ago. They were integral components of continental and marginal marine ecosystems, yet their diets remain poorly constrained. Numerous dietary hypotheses have been proposed for different pterosaur groups, including insectivory, piscivory, carnivory, durophagy, herbivory/frugivory, filter-feeding and generalism. These hypotheses, and subsequent interpretations of pterosaur diet, are supported by qualitative (content fossils, associations, ichnology, comparative anatomy) and/or quantitative (functional morphology, stable isotope analysis) evidence. Pterosaur dietary interpretations are scattered throughout the literature with little attention paid to the supporting evidence. Reaching a robustly supported consensus on pterosaur diets is important for understanding their dietary evolution, and their roles in Mesozoic ecosystems. A comprehensive examination of the pterosaur literature identified 314 dietary interpretations (dietary statement plus supporting evidence) from 126 published studies. Multiple alternative diets have been hypothesised for most principal taxonomic pterosaur groups. Some groups exhibit a high degree of consensus, supported by multiple lines of evidence, while others exhibit less consensus. Qualitative evidence supports 87.3% of dietary interpretations, with comparative anatomy most common (62.1% of total). More speciose groups of pterosaur tend to have a greater range of hypothesised diets. Consideration of dietary interpretations within alternative phylogenetic contexts reveals high levels of consensus between equivalent monofenestratan groups, and lower levels of consensus between equivalent non-monofenestratan groups. Evaluating the possible non-biological controls on apparent patterns of dietary diversity reveals that numbers of dietary interpretations through time exhibit no correlation with patterns of publication (number of peer-reviewed publications through time). 73.8% of dietary interpretations were published in the 21st century. Overall, consensus interpretations of pterosaur diets are better accounted for by non-biological signals, such as the impact of the respective quality of the fossil record of different pterosaur groups on research levels. That many interpretations are based on qualitative, often untestable lines of evidence adds significant noise to the data. More experiment-led pterosaur dietary research, with greater consideration of pterosaurs as organisms with independent evolutionary histories, will lead to more robust conclusions drawn from repeatable results. This will allow greater understanding of pterosaur dietary diversity, disparity and evolution and facilitate reconstructions of Mesozoic ecosystems.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.007 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".