Data from: Highly resolved early Eocene food webs show development of modern trophic structure after the end-Cretaceous extinction

Generalities of food web structure have been identified for extant ecosystems. However, the trophic organization of ancient ecosystems is unresolved, as prior studies of fossil webs have been limited by low-resolution, high-uncertainty data. We compiled highly resolved, well-documented feeding interaction data for 700 taxa from the 48 million-year-old latest early Eocene Messel Shale, which contains a species assemblage that developed after an interval of protracted environmental and biotal change during and following the end-Cretaceous extinction. We compared the network structure of Messel lake and forest food webs to extant webs using analyses that account for scale dependence of structure with diversity and complexity. The Messel lake web, with 94 taxa, displays unambiguous similarities in structure to extant webs. While the Messel forest web, with 630 taxa, displays differences compared to extant webs, they appear to result from high diversity and resolution of insect–plant interactions, rather than substantive differences in structure. The evidence presented here suggests that modern trophic organization developed along with the modern Messel biota during an 18 Myr interval of dramatic post-extinction change. Our study also has methodological implications, as the Messel forest web analysis highlights limitations of current food web data and models.现有生态系统的食物网结构共性已被系统探明。然而，古生态系统的营养组织结构尚未得到明晰解析——此前针对化石食物网的研究长期受限于低分辨率、高不确定性的观测数据。本研究针对距今4800万年的始新世早期最晚阶梅塞尔页岩（Messel Shale）中的700个分类单元，整合了高分辨率、记录完备的取食相互作用数据集；该页岩所保存的物种组合，是白垩纪末期灭绝事件期间及之后经历长期环境与生物群演替后形成的。本研究采用考虑结构随物种多样性与复杂度变化的尺度依赖性的分析方法，将梅塞尔湖与梅塞尔森林食物网的网络结构与现代现存生态系统的食物网进行对比。包含94个分类单元的梅塞尔湖食物网，其网络结构与现代现存食物网存在明确的相似性。尽管包含630个分类单元的梅塞尔森林食物网与现代现存食物网存在结构差异，但这些差异并非源于网络结构本身的实质性区别，而是源于昆虫-植物相互作用的高多样性与高分辨率特征。本研究的证据表明，现代营养组织结构与现代梅塞尔生物群一同，在白垩纪灭绝事件后的1800万年剧烈变迁阶段中逐步形成。本研究同时具备方法论层面的启示意义：梅塞尔森林食物网的分析结果清晰揭示了当前食物网数据与模型所存在的局限性。