Brianroy Rosen

Natural History Museum, London · Department of Earth Sciences

As one of the most prolific and widespread reef builders, the staghorn coral Acropora holds a disproportionately large role in how coral reefs will respond to accelerating anthropogenic change. We show that although Acropora has a diverse history extended over the past 50 million years, it was not a dominant reef builder until the onset of high-amp...

Read the Feature Paper: Setting evolutionary‐based conservation priorities for a phylogenetically data‐poor taxonomic group (Scleractinia) and the Commentaries on this Feature Paper: Valuing species on the cheap; Conservation prioritization in the context of uncertainty; Regional specific approach is a next step for setting evolutionary‐based conse...

Study of the extinct and extant biota of the Coral Triangle region has not yet provided answers to questions about mechanisms controlling the origins and maintenance of this marine biodiversity hotspot. We present an updated stratigraphy and revise the taxonomic determinations for important historical collections from Indonesia that have been the b...

Given the current extinction crisis coupled with the shortfall in funding, there is a pressing need to establish species conservation priorities. The prioritization of phylogenetic diversity and evolutionary distinctiveness is one approach; however, taking such an approach requires more phylogenetic data than are currently available for most taxa....

It is widely acknowledged that the Southeast Asian region is an area of outstanding biological and geological interest. It is an area of exceptional biodiversity which contains both marine and terrestrial biodiversity hotspots (Myers et al. 2000, Roberts et al. 2002). The convoluted and still highly active, tectonic history of the region has result...

Comparative sedimentology and palaeoecology of Oxfordian (Upper Jurassic) coral-dominated reefs of England, France, Italy and Switzerland has been used to: (1) identify and characterize different types of Late Jurassic coral reefs with regard to their litho- and biofacies; and (2) develop a depositional model for these reefs relating different reef...

There is currently widespread concern about the deterioration of living reef corals, such as Acropora, and tropical reefs. Much of their demise appears to be related to coral bleaching, the underlying cause is probably global climatic warming. Future predictions about the responses of modern coral reefs lacks data from the geological past. The foss...

Acropora is the most diverse genus of reef-building corals in the world today. It occurs in all three major oceans; it is restricted to latitudes 31 degrees N-31 degrees S, where most coral reefs occur, and reaches greatest diversity in the central Indo-Pacific. As an exemplar genus, the long-term history of Acropora has implications for the evolut...

The diversity, frequency, and scale of human impacts on coral reefs are increasing to the extent that reefs are threatened globally. Projected increases in carbon dioxide and temperature over the next 50 years exceed the conditions under which coral reefs have flourished over the past half-million years. However, reefs will change rather than disap...

Poorly preserved colonial corals occur near the base of the Lower Jurassic marginal facies at Southerndown, South Wales. Previously they have been interpreted as serpulid colonies, despite a dissimilarity to any serpulids known from elsewhere in the Lias or the few known extant colonial serpulids. However, local preservation of fine detail reveals...

The steepest latitudinal and longitudinal gradients in taxonomic diversity at the present day are those associated with tropical high diversity foci. Although there has been a tendency in the past to regard these features as either evolutionary ‘cradles’ or ‘museums’ of considerable antiquity, this may not be the case. Within the marine realm, a un...

Ecological assemblages of platy corals occur through most of the geological record of the Scleractinia (late Triassic to Recent) but they have received almost no detailed attention. Recent studies have suggested that they represent a photoadaptive response by photosymbiotic corals to reduced illumination in deeper and/or more turbid waters. As an i...

The modern Indo-West Pacific centre of marine diversity, embracing SE Asia, has the highest zooxanthellate coral di-versity in the world, and is characterised by abundant coral reefs. In contrast, field and literature studies show that in Paleogene carbonates of SE Asia, corals are rare, and exten-sive coral reefs have not been reported. Corals and...

This chapter examines the Pliocene and Quaternary post-rift sediments overlying, and deformed by, the intrusion of salt diapirs on the coastal plain of Yemen in the south-eastern Red Sea. The coastal plain region has been dominated by siliciclastic deposits (Al Milh Sandstone) derived from erosion of the Yemen rift shoulder escarpment and deposited...

Mass extinctions are recognized through the study of fossil groups across event horizons, and from analyses of long-term trends in taxonomic richness and diversity. Both approaches have inherent flaws, and data that once seemed reliable can be readily superseded by the discovery of new fossils and/or the application of new analytical techniques. He...

Mass extinctions are recognized through the study of fossil groups across event horizons, and from analyses of long-term trends in taxonomic richness and diversity. Both approaches have inherent flaws, and data that once seemed reliable can be readily superseded by the discovery of new fossils and/or the application of new analytical techniques. He...

Faunal associations observed in a Maastrichtian carbonate platform succession in the western borders of the North Oman mountains are established, based on field collections of more than 7000 macrofossils belonging to some 200 species. Lithofacies are also distinguished from petrographic analysis. The succession was deposited during a single sea-lev...

From a study of two areas, Jesira and the Bajuni Archipelago, about 400 km apart, a general pattern can be established for the Recent facies, together with the morphological and taxonomic features of the corals. Present day coral development is characterized by true fringing reefs in the Bajuni Archipelago and by scattered patches and knolls in the...

This paper reviews the concepts of palaeobiogeography in the wider context of biogeography as a whole, and discusses the principal kinds of methods used in palaeobiogeography, especially for reconstructing palaeogeography and geological history. Examples are mostly given from marine studies. The emphasis is on the need for a more empirical approach...

The biotic evidence from a varied group of shallow-water organisms including mangroves, zooxanthellate corals (mainly reefal), and larger foraminifera suggests that sea surface temperatures at low latitudes during the Tertiary (from at least the Early Eocene to the Middle Miocene) were subtropical to tropical in nature, and similar to temperatures...

This first part of this paper summarizes the descriptive biogeography of reef corals, with mention of other tropical marine organisms, in terms of present-day latitudinal and longitudinal patterns, and stratigraphical patterns (mostly Cainozoic). Present-day generic distributions are well known but species distributions may be a much more complex m...

Jebel Abu Shaar is a completely dolomitized carbonate platform atop a crystalline basement horst on the western side of the Gulf of Suez. Margins of the platform, where not removed by synsedimentary faulting, are formed by well-developed coral reefs. The massive reef carbonates consistently illustrate two stages of growth: a basal paucispecific uni...

Biogeographical distribution is seen as a product of small- and large-scale factors, of which only the latter are important in palaeogeographical reconstruction. We review here previous methods for assessing the historical sequence of major events that have caused biogeographical distributions, and we argue that the most rigorous of these is cladis...

Reviews ways in which fossils provide spatial information on a geographical scale, ie palaeogeographical reconstruction and the events that brought about geographical changes. Use of fossils introduces constraints into methods of inferring earth history that do not arise from use of living material, including those of stratigraphy, taxonomy, phylog...

To understand biogeographical patterns one must first ask questions about the nature of patterns themselves. This in turn requires a consideration of the aims, approaches and methods of biogeography. The need for such a discussion reflects the fact that biogeography lacks cohesion and consistency (Chapter 1). There is too little sound knowledge of...

Following a lead from botanists, this paper offers a re-interpretation of the morphology and growth of scleractinian, rugosan and tabulate corals in terms of iterated morphological units (modules), with an emphasis on the shape and organization of colonies. It presents a new theoretical basis for modules, a new descriptive framework for corals abov...

A unique mode of asexual reproduction in recently collected specimens of Goniopora (Scleractinia) is reported. Skeleton is absent from new polyps; the skelton develops independently of the parent colony as the new polyps themselves increase. The young colonies eventually become detached. The cycle seems to be a response to a sandy habitat, a conclu...