title: Placoderm Assemblage from the Tetrapod-Bearing Locality of Strud (Belgium, Upper Famennian) Provides Evidence for a Fish Nursery.
abstract: The placoderm fauna of the upper Famennian tetrapod-bearing locality of Strud, Belgium, includes the antiarch Grossilepis rikiki, the arthrodire groenlandaspidid Turrisaspis strudensis and the phyllolepidid Phyllolepis undulata. Based on morphological and morphometric evidence, the placoderm specimens from Strud are predominantly recognised as immature specimens and this locality as representing a placoderm nursery. The Strud depositional environment corresponds to a channel in an alluvial plain, and the presence of a nursery in such environment could have provided nutrients and protection to the placoderm offspring. This represents one of the earliest pieces of evidence for this sort of habitat partitioning in vertebrate history, with adults living more distantly from the nursery and using the nursery only to spawn or give live birth.
authors.affiliation: OD Earth and Life History, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, Belgium.|Evolution & Diversity Dynamics Lab, Department of Geology, Liège University, Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: Sébastien
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9690-7464
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Olive
authors.affiliation: Centre de Recherche sur la Paléobiodiversité et les Paléoenvironnements, UMR CR2P 7207, Sorbonne Universités, MNHN, CNRS, UPMC-Paris6, Muséum national d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Gaël
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Clément
authors.affiliation: Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
authors.forename: Edward B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Daeschler
authors.affiliation: Subdepartment of Evolution and Development, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Dupret
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001530:Belgium; D005075:Biological Evolution; D017753:Ecosystem; D005399:Fishes; D005580:Fossils