↓ Skip to main content

Cambrian suspension-feeding lobopodians and the early radiation of panarthropods

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Ecology and Evolution, January 2017
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • One of the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#3 of 3,717)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (98th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
32 news outlets
blogs
2 blogs
twitter
338 X users
facebook
2 Facebook pages
wikipedia
47 Wikipedia pages

Citations

dimensions_citation
23 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
64 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Cambrian suspension-feeding lobopodians and the early radiation of panarthropods
Published in
BMC Ecology and Evolution, January 2017
DOI 10.1186/s12862-016-0858-y
Pubmed ID
Authors

Jean-Bernard Caron, Cédric Aria

Abstract

Arthropoda, Tardigrada and Onychophora evolved from lobopodians, a paraphyletic group of disparate Palaeozoic vermiform animals with soft legs. Although the morphological diversity that this group encompasses likely illustrates the importance of niche diversification in the early radiation of panarthropods, the ecology of lobopodians remains poorly characterized. Here we describe a new luolishaniid taxon from the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale (Walcott Quarry) in British Columbia, Canada, whose specialized morphology epitomizes the suspension-feeding ecology of this clade, and is convergent with some modern marine animals, such as caprellid crustaceans. This species possesses two long pairs and four shorter pairs of elongate spinose lobopods at the front, each bearing two slender claws, and three pairs of stout lobopods bearing single, strong, hook-like anterior-facing claws at the back. The trunk is remarkably bare, widening rearwards, and, at the front, extends beyond the first pair of lobopods into a small "head" bearing a pair of visual organs and a short proboscis with numerous teeth. Based on a critical reappraisal of character coding in lobopodians and using Bayesian and parsimony-based tree searches, two alternative scenarios for early panarthropod evolution are retrieved. In both cases, hallucigeniids and luolishaniids are found to be extinct radiative stem group panarthropods, in contrast to previous analyses supporting a position of hallucigeniids as part of total-group Onychophora. Our Bayesian topology finds luolishaniids and hallucigeniids to form two successive clades at the base of Panarthropoda. Disparity analyses suggest that luolishaniids, hallucigeniids and total-group Onychophora each occupy a distinct region of morphospace. Hallucigeniids and luolishaniids were comparably diverse and successful, representing two major lobopodian clades in the early Palaeozoic, and both evolved body plans adapted to different forms of suspension feeding. A Bayesian approach to cladistics supports the view that a semi-sessile, suspension-feeding lifestyle characterized the origin and rise of Panarthropoda from cycloneuralian body plans.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 338 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 64 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 1 2%
United States 1 2%
Unknown 62 97%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Bachelor 13 20%
Student > Master 9 14%
Researcher 6 9%
Professor 5 8%
Student > Ph. D. Student 5 8%
Other 9 14%
Unknown 17 27%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 18 28%
Earth and Planetary Sciences 12 19%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 9 14%
Medicine and Dentistry 2 3%
Environmental Science 2 3%
Other 1 2%
Unknown 20 31%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 508. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 13 March 2024.
All research outputs
#50,932
of 25,562,515 outputs
Outputs from BMC Ecology and Evolution
#3
of 3,717 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#1,136
of 425,203 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Ecology and Evolution
#2
of 75 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,562,515 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,717 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 425,203 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 75 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.