Analyses of ancient food webs reveal important paleoecological processes and responses to a range of perturbations throughout Earth's history, such as climate change. These responses can inform our forecasts of future biotic responses to similar perturbations. However, previous analyses of ancient food webs rarely accounted for key differences between modern and ancient community data, particularly selective loss of soft-bodied taxa during fossilization. To consider how fossilization impacts inferences of ancient community structure, we (1) analyzed node-level attributes to identify correlations between ecological roles and fossilization potential and (2) applied selective information loss procedures to food web data for extant systems. We found that selective loss of soft-bodied organisms has predictable effects on the trophic structure of “artificially fossilized” food webs because these organisms occupy unique, consistent food web positions. Fossilized food webs misleadingly appear less stable (i.e., more prone to trophic cascades), with less predation and an overrepresentation of generalist consumers. We also found that ecological differences between soft- and hard-bodied taxa—indicated by distinct positions in modern food webs—are recorded in an early Eocene web, but not in Cambrian webs. This suggests that ecological differences between the groups have existed for ≥48 Myr. Our results indicate that accounting for soft-bodied taxa is vital for accurate depictions of ancient food webs. However, the consistency of information loss trends across the analyzed food webs means it is possible to predict how the selective loss of soft-bodied taxa affects food web metrics, which can permit better modeling of ancient communities.

中文翻译：

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解开古代食物网中的生态和埋藏信号

对古代食物网的分析揭示了重要的古生态过程和对地球历史上一系列扰动的反应，例如气候变化。这些反应可以为我们预测未来生物对类似扰动的反应提供信息。然而，以前对古代食物网的分析很少解释现代和古代社区数据之间的关键差异，特别是在石化过程中软体类群的选择性损失。为了考虑石化如何影响对古代群落结构的推断，我们（1）分析了节点级属性以识别生态角色和石化潜力之间的相关性，以及（2）将选择性信息丢失程序应用于现存系统的食物网数据。我们发现软体生物的选择性丧失对“人造化石”食物网的营养结构具有可预测的影响，因为这些生物占据独特、一致的食物网位置。被误导的化石食物网似乎不太稳定（即，更容易出现营养级联），捕食较少且通才消费者的比例过高。我们还发现，软体和硬体类群之间的生态差异——由现代食物网中的不同位置表明——记录在始新世早期的网中，但在寒武纪网中没有。这表明组之间的生态差异已经存在≥48 Myr。我们的研究结果表明，对软体分类群的计算对于准确描述古代食物网至关重要。然而，