Data from: Analysing Thalattosuchia paleobiodiversity under the prism of phylogenetic comparative methods

Thalattosuchia is a particularly diverse group of mostly marine
crocodylomorphs that lived during most of the Jurassic and Lower
Cretaceous. Previous studies have sought to uncover the factors
influencing Crocodylomorph evolution, yielding mixed results, possibly due
to Thalattosuchia’s unique ecological niche and controversial phylogenetic
placement among Crocodylomorph. Here, we propose a Thalattosuchia-focused
study using phylogenetically-informed statistical analyses. First, we
tested the phylogenetic structure of thalattosuchian survival at various
geological transitions. We then tested the influence of biotic and abiotic
factors on thalattosuchian diversity at the aforementioned crises.
Finally, we tested whether diet was an additional explanatory factor. We
found that (1) thalattosuchian diversification at the Lower-Middle
Jurassic transition was phylogenetically structured and associated with
signs of snout reduction possibly explained by the colonisation of emptied
ecological niches, allowing the emergence of Machimosaurinae and
Geosaurinae ; (2) we observed higher local temperatures for Thalattosuchia
after the Middle-Upper Jurassic and Jurassic-Cretaceous transitions, the
former being in accordance with most climatic literature and the latter
being subject to more caution; Finally, (3) we corroborated previous
studies about skull shape and found that durophageous teleosauroids tended
to have larger body sizes than any other diet, possibly as a result of
ecological specialization. We also found evidences of niche partitioning
among piscivorous and macrophageous metriorhynchoids that is observable by
a size range extension.