Taxacom: Taxacom Digest, Vol 233, Issue 4

[Leslie Watling]

Those of us who have studied life in the marine intertidal have known for
about 50 years, through both observation and experiment, that tide pools
and shallow inshore zones are places where species can avoid competition
and predation. Along with that, in order to survive in the widely
fluctuating conditions the intertidal offers, the species generally have to
be physiologically capable, which would "pre-adapt" them for land
colonization, I suppose.

Whether tectonic uplift or some other factor was involved in the case of
fished, who knows. But there is nothing wrong with the statement about
avoiding competition and predation.


Les Watling
Professor Emeritus
School of Life Sciences
University of Hawaii

Professor Emeritus
School of Marine Sciences
University of Maine



On Tue, Sep 16, 2025 at 1:00 PM <taxacom-request at lists.ku.edu> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. initial terrestrial transitions (John Grehan)
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> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2025 12:38:08 -0400
> From: John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>
> To: taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Subject: Taxacom: initial terrestrial transitions
> Message-ID:
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> Happened to see a pop note on the web titled "New Fossil Trackways Reveal
> Fish Left The Ocean 10 Million Years Earlier Than Thought" I guess some
> people still think the oldest fossil is the oldest origin - until falsified
> by an earlier fossil that is earlier 'than thought' (perhaps someone
> should stop thinking).
>
> The referenced article is Szrek et al 2025 "Traces of dipnoan fish document
> the earliest adaptations of vertebrates to move on land" (open access).
>
> Authors make a couple of interesting points: "The process of vertebrate
> terrestrialisation was therefore multi-staged, suggesting that the ability
> to walk and/or near-walking in very shallow water may have existed even
> before the appearance of tetrapods." They actually used the term
> pre-adaptation. To me this is fine.
>
> But then they say "By moving towards land, the fishes avoided competition
> and predation, gaining access
> to new feeding areas." This is where teleology starts to creep in. They do
> not elaborate, but the purposeful nature of the event is evident. The
> authors, along with just about everyone else in paleontology (as far as I
> know) fail to consider tectonic uplift as the key process that imposes an
> increasingly terrestrial situation for coastal organisms that become
> sufficiently stranded. Those with the critical 'preadaptations' survive,
> and under those newer conditions will continue to evolve. those that do
> not, do not. Simple as that.
>
> Cheers,
>
> John Grehan
>
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> End of Taxacom Digest, Vol 233, Issue 4
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