DOI: 10.5061/dryad.fb821k5
title: Data from: Endemism in Wyoming plant and insect herbivore communities during the early Eocene hothouse

description: The warm, equable, and ice-free early Eocene Epoch permits investigation
 of ecosystem function and macro-ecological patterns during a very
 different climate regime than exists today. It also provides insight into
 what the future may entail, as anthropogenic CO2 release drives Earth
 towards a comparable hothouse condition. Studying plant-insect herbivore
 food webs during hothouse intervals is warranted because these account for
 the majority of non-microbial terrestrial biodiversity. Here, we report
 new plant and insect herbivore damage census data from two floodplain
 sites in the Wind River Basin of central Wyoming, one in the Aycross
 Formation (50-48.25 Ma) at the basin edge (WRE) and the second in the Wind
 River Formation in the interior of the basin (WRI). The WRI site is in
 stratigraphic proximity to a volcanic ash that is newly dated to 52.416 ±
 0.016/0.028/0.063 (2σ). We compare the Wind River Basin assemblages to
 published data from a 52.65 Ma floodplain flora in the neighboring Bighorn
 Basin (BH) and find that only 5.6% of plant taxa occur at all three sites
 and approximately 10% occur in both basins. The dissimilar floras support
 distinct suites of insect herbivores, as recorded by leaf damage. The
 relatively low diversity BH flora has the highest diversity of insect
 damage, contrary to hypotheses that insect herbivore diversity tracks
 floral diversity. The distinctiveness of the WRE flora is likely due to
 its younger age and cooler reconstructed paleotemperature, but these
 factors are nearly identical for the WRI and BH floras. Site-specific
 microenvironmental factors that cannot be measured easily in deep time may
 account for these differences. Alternatively, the Owl Creek Mountains
 between the two basins may have provided a formidable barrier to the
 thermophilic organisms that inhabited the basin interiors, supporting
 Janzen’s hypothesis that mountain passes appear higher in tropical
 environments.
description: Currano et al_
 Paleobiology_Supplemental Methods and Morphotype
 InformationThis file contains U-Pb
 geochronology methods and data, Wind River Basin leaf morphotype
 descriptions and photographs, Wind River Basin floral census counts, a
 table of plant occurrences compared among the three study sites, and leaf
 mass per area reconstruction methods and results.Wind River Edge full
 datasetThis .csv file is the
 full insect damage dataset for the Wind River Edge site and includes every
 dicot leaf fossil examined at this site. For each leaf, locality number,
 specimen number, plant species, and the damage type(s) observed is
 reported. Damage types follow Labandeira et al. 2007. If more than one
 damage type is present on a specimen, a semicolon is used to separate the
 damage types.Wind River Interior full
 datasetThis .csv is the full
 insect damage census for the Wind River Interior site. For each leaf, the
 DMNH locality number, DMNH specimen number, collector's locality
 number, collector's specimen number, plant species, and damage types
 observed are reported. Specimens with "C" in the
 collector's locality number column were censused in the field. All
 other specimens are curated at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.
 Damage type data is recorded as "damage type observed (number of
 occurrences of that damage type)"- for example, 3(2) would mean that
 there are 2 occurrences of DT3 on a specimen. Damage types follow
 Labandeira et al. 2007. If more than one damage type is present on a
 specimen, a semicolon is used to separate the damage
 types.