FOR 533:  Biology of the Sauropod Dinosaurs: The Evolution of Gigantism

• Subject Area: Geosciences ; Biology
• Term: from 2004 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 5470770

The Research Unit will research, through a highly interdisciplinary approach, how the biggest living creatures of all time, the sauropod dinosaurs, functioned as a living organism and what enabled their gigantism. The twelve subject groups from five disciplines (paleontology, zoology, animal nutrition, geochemistry and material science) will investigate the various aspects of the development, physiology and biomechanics of the sauropod.
The Research Unit has two main objectives, with one building on top of the other: to understand these giant animals as a living organism and to answer the question how they were able to reach their enormous size. The biology of the sauropods will be researched by examining three sets of questions: growth and reproduction, physiology and diet as well as biomechanics. The fundamental data includes the bone microstructure, fossil eggs, and the chemistry of the bone as well as the bones themselves. Comparison with living animals will also be conducted, e.g. investigations into the digestibility of the alleged plant nutrition, many examples of which still grow today.
Understanding the energy budget of the sauropod dinosaurs will play a central role in the question of gigantism. The question is less about the evolutionary increase in the body size (this is a quite a well-known phenomenon), but about the limitations of elephants and other mammals to approximately ten tons of body mass, and in contrast, the sauropods to approximately 100 tons. Possibly, the life-support functions of Apatosaurus and related species worked more efficiently than those of other land-living animals.
The Research Unit is spread over different locations with the Research Coordinator, PD Dr. Martin Sander and administration based at the Institute for Palaeontology, University of Bonn. Three of the groups are based at Bonn, with the other research groups located at other German-speaking universities.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• International Connection: Switzerland, United Kingdom

Projects

• An expanded predator-prey community model, its application to dinosaur coummunities, and selection for giant body size in sauropods (Applicant Clauss, Marcus )
• Biology of the Sauropod Dinosaurs: The Evolution of Gigantism (Applicant Sander, Martin )
• Biology of the Sauropod Dinosaurs: The Evolution of Gigantism (Applicant Sander, Martin )
• Body cavity size in fossil chewing herbivores, non-chewing herbivores, and carnivores: Implications for GIT volume and gigantism. (Applicant Clauss, Marcus )
• Did extreme food intake rates permit sauropod gigantism? Insights from feeding trials and muzzle morphometrics. (Applicant Steuer, Patrick )
• Digestion und Nutrition of sauropods (Applicant Südekum, Karl-Heinz )
• Evolution of the sauropod body plan, with special emphasis on limbs and girdles (Applicant Rauhut, Ph.D., Oliver )
• Feeding strategies in sauropodomorphs: The evolution of extreme neck length and very large body size (Applicant Christian, Andreas )
• Fibrolamellar bone in basal Archosauromorpha: Tracing the evolution of high growth rates. (Applicant Sander, Martin )
• Functional morphological test of the hypothetical structure of a sauropod respiratory system (Applicant Perry, Steven F. )
• Functional morphology of the girdle skeleton in Sauropodomorpha and its selective advantages for locomotion in a giant (Applicant Preuschoft, Holger )
• Histology and morphology of sauropod cervical ribs: Implications for neck posture (Applicant Sander, Martin )
• Isotopologue thermometry of fossil hard tissues: A new approach to inferring dinosaur body temperature. (Applicant Tütken, Thomas )
• Life history and growth of sauropods (Applicant Sander, Martin )
• Modelling growth, vital statistics and energy budget of sauropods: key features contributing to gigantism. (Applicants Griebeler, Eva Maria ;  Sander, Martin )
• Plateosaurus quantified: New mathematical method to estimate body mass mass distribution and kinematic analysis of locomotion (Applicant Pfretzschner, Hans-Ulrich )
• Promoting gigantism: Costal ventilation model based on quantitative analysis of the respiratory system in recent and fossil amniotes (Applicant Perry, Steven F. )
• Reconstruction of the neck posture and neck utilisation in sauropods and prosauropods, and its relevance for body design (Applicant Christian, Andreas )
• Sauropod Food Ecology: Insights from plant-animal co-occurrence, paleobotany, and evolutionary history of the Jurassic conifer Araucaria (Applicant Mosbrugger, Volker )
• The biomechanical design and morphofunctional evolution of presacral vertebrae in Sauropodomorpha deduced from shape analysis and FESS (Applicants Rauhut, Ph.D., Oliver ;  Witzel, Ulrich )
• The evolution of sauropodomorph locomotion and its adaptation to giant body size: Insights from CAD and kinematical computer modeling (Applicant Mallison, Heinrich )
• The evolution of skull shape and function in Sauropodomorpha: Insights from finite elements structure synthesis and landmark analysis (Applicant Witzel, Ulrich )
• The hierarchical structure of sauropodomorph bones as a key to exceptional body size: Insights from materials science (Applicant Kaysser-Pyzalla, Anke Rita )
• The physiology of sauropods in view of body mass, available biomass, and biological rhythms (Applicant Gunga, Hanns-Christian )
• The role of trachea, lungs and airsacs in temperature control in sauropods as inferred from finite element and air-flow analysis. (Applicant Perry, Steven F. )
• Transmission of body weight on the free forelimb through the shoulder girdle in reptiles, especially sauropodomorphs (Applicant Preuschoft, Holger )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Martin Sander