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Reply to: The Cabrières Biota is not a Konservat-Lagerstätte

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 8, pages 2175–2178 (2024)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 11 October 2024

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replying to L. A. Muir & J. P. Botting Nature Ecology & Evolution https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02559-6 (2024)

The Cabrières Biota (France) is a new diverse fossil assemblage that provides insights into Ordovician polar ecosystems1. This assemblage comprises fossils of algae, sponges, cnidarians, trilobites, non-biomineralized arthropods, molluscs, brachiopods, hyoliths, hemichordates, worms and lobopodians1, as well as trace fossils. Muir and Botting2 question whether the site is a Lagerstätte by reinterpreting sponges, algae, hemichordates, worms and cnidarians as trace fossils. Here we show that their arguments do not follow an evidence-based approach and the specifics of their trace fossil claims do not engage with the standard protocols for distinguishing between trace and body fossils. We provide comprehensive evidence that the Cabrières Biota is a diverse and exceptionally preserved fossil Lagerstätte including algae and animals, representing a high-latitude refugium during the warm Early Ordovician.

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Fig. 1: Body and trace fossils from the Cabrières Biota.

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Acknowledgements

We thank K. Nanglu for fruitful discussions and identifications and E. Birolini for facilitating access to the material in Lyon. We also thank the Cabrières municipality for facilitating access to the fossiliferous sites. This paper is a contribution to International Geoscience Programme Project 735 (Rocks and the Rise of Ordovician Life (Rocks n’ ROL)) and the project ECO-BOOST of the French National Research Agency (ANR-22-CE01-0003). F.S. acknowledges funding from the Faculty of Geoscience and Environment of the University of Lausanne and Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) Ambizione grant PZ00P2_209102. L. Laibl was supported by the program Dynamic Planet Earth of the Czech Academy of Sciences (StrategieAV21/30) and institutional support RVO 67985831 of the Institute of Geology of the Czech Academy of Sciences. H.B.D., S.L. and J.B.A. are funded by an SNF Sinergia grant (CRSII5_198691) awarded to A.C.D. L. Lustri and F.P.-P. were funded during the early stages of this project by an SNF project grant (205321_179084) awarded to A.C.D. V.J. is funded by an SNF Ambizione grant (PZ00P2_193520). G.J.-M.P. is supported by the Canton of Vaud. C.D., R.G., B.L. and M.V. were funded by the INSU-Tellus project LAG d’OC.

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Author notes

  1. Unaffiliated: Jean-Paul Kundura, Marie-Hélène Kundura.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Farid Saleh, Lorenzo Lustri, Pierre Gueriau, Gaëtan J.-M. Potin, Francesc Pérez-Peris, Valentin Jamart, Antoine Vite, Jonathan B. Antcliffe, Allison C. Daley, Sinéad Lynch & Harriet B. Drage

  2. Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Ministère de la Culture, UVSQ, MNHN, Institut Photonique d’Analyse Non-destructive Européen des Matériaux Anciens, Saint-Aubin, France

    Pierre Gueriau

  3. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Francesc Pérez-Peris

  4. Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of Geology, Prague, Czech Republic

    Lukáš Laibl

  5. Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, CNRS, UMR5276, LGL-TPE, Villeurbanne, France

    Antoine Vite, Christophe Dupichaud & Bertrand Lefebvre

  6. Czech Geological Survey, Prague, Czech Republic

    Martina Nohejlová

  7. Synchrotron SOLEIL, L’Orme des Merisiers, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Sebastian Schöder & Emilie Bérard

  8. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Romain Vaucher

  9. University of Brest, CNRS, Ifremer, Geo-Ocean, UMR 6538, Plouzané, France

    Muriel Vidal & Romain Gougeon

  10. Société d’Etudes Scientifiques de l’Aude, Carcassonne, France

    Eric Monceret & Sylvie Monceret

Authors
  1. Farid Saleh
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  2. Lorenzo Lustri
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  20. Sylvie Monceret
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  21. Jean-Paul Kundura
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  22. Marie-Hélène Kundura
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  23. Romain Gougeon
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  24. Bertrand Lefebvre
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Contributions

G.J.-M.P. and V.J. took photographs of the fossils. F.S. produced the figures and tables. F.S., R.G., J.B.A. and B.L. discussed and wrote the response with the help of L. Lustri, P.G., G.J.-M.P., F.P.-P., L. Laibl, V.J., A.V., A.C.D., M.N., C.D., S.S., E.B., S.L., H.B.D., R.V., M.V., E.M., S.M., J.-P.K. and M.-H.K.

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Correspondence to Farid Saleh.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks Marcelo Carrera and Julien Kimmig for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Saleh, F., Lustri, L., Gueriau, P. et al. Reply to: The Cabrières Biota is not a Konservat-Lagerstätte. Nat Ecol Evol 8, 2175–2178 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02560-z

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