A Late Permian brachiopod fauna from the Muyi section, Anshun, Guizhou and its ecological features
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Abstract:
This study reports a Changhsingian brachiopod fauna from the Muyi section (southern Guizhou), which is quite different from other previously reported contemporary brachiopod faunas from South China. This fauna is dominated by Spiriferellina, and contains several genera (e.g., Fusichonetes, Araxathyris and Peltichia) that are commonly found in coeval brachiopod faunas in South China. Compared with the brachiopod faunas from clastic facies of South China, this fauna is dominated by larger and thicker-shelled types with coarse punctae. This could be attributed to the unique paleoenvironment of the Muyi section, which was situated between the shallow-water carbonate platform and deep-water siliceous basin during the Changhsingian. During the end-Permian, massive volcanism resulted in the increased influx of clastic matter into the marine environment, which had a negative influence on the filtering mechanism of the brachiopods. Therefore, the paleoenvironment of the Muyi section with clean water and weak hydrodynamic condition became a relatively better habitat for the brachiopods. In addition, the Muyi brachiopod fauna shares similar composition with the adjacent Liuzhi brachiopod fauna. The Muyi fauna also demonstrates high dominance and low evenness in community structure, like other brachiopod faunas in South China. It may be inferred that the early warning signal had already existed in the benthic brachiopod communities prior to the end-Permian mass extinction.
