ArticlePalaeontology2020
Taphonomic experiments resolve controls on the preservation of melanosomes and keratinous tissues in feathers.
Article in Palaeontology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Article
- Experimental maturation of pine resin in sediment to investigate the formation of synthetic copal and amber.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- A new non-destructive method to decipher the origin of organic matter in fossils using Raman spectroscopy.RSC advances · 2024Article
- Taphonomic experiments reveal authentic molecular signals for fossil melanins and verify preservation of phaeomelanin in fossils.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Preservation of corneous β-proteins in Mesozoic feathers.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
- The origins of colour patterns in fossil insects revealed by maturation experiments.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Environmental Factors Affecting Feather Taphonomy.Biology · 2022Article
- Tooth morphology elucidates shark evolution across the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.PLoS biology · 2021Article
- Hierarchical biota-level and taxonomic controls on the chemistry of fossil melanosomes revealed using synchrotron X-ray fluorescence.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Taphonomic experiments resolve controls on the preservation of melanosomes and keratinous tissues in feathers.Palaeontology · 2020Article
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6 authors.
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Abstract
Fossils are a key source of data on the evolution of feather structure and function through deep time, but their ability to resolve macroevolutionary questions is compromised by an incomplete understanding of their taphonomy. Critically, the relative preservation potential of two key feather components, melanosomes and keratinous tissue, is not fully resolved. Recent studies suggesting that melanosomes are preferentially preserved conflict with observations that melanosomes preserve in fossil feathers as external moulds in an organic matrix. To date, there is no model to explain the latter mode of melanosome preservation. We addressed these issues by degrading feathers in systematic taphonomic experiments incorporating decay, maturation and oxidation in isolation and combination. Our results reveal that the production of mouldic melanosomes requires interactions with an oxidant and is most likely to occur prior to substantial maturation. This constrains the taphonomic conditions under which melanosomes are likely to be fossilized. Critically, our experiments also confirm that keratinous feather structures have a higher preservation potential than melanosomes under a range of diagenetic conditions, supporting hitherto controversial hypotheses that fossil feathers can retain degraded keratinous structures.
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