Agathis vs. Hymenaea—trapping biases to interpret arthropod assemblages in ambers
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2025
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Springer
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Solórzano-Kraemer, M. M., Monleón-Getino, A., Peñalver, E. et al. Agathis vs. Hymenaea—trapping biases to interpret arthropod assemblages in ambers. BMC Biol 23, 337 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-025-02453-y
Abstract
Background
The genera Agathis (Coniferales: Araucariaceae) and Hymenaea (Fabales: Fabaceae) contain resin-producing tree species that are crucial for actuotaphonomic studies. While certain Cretaceous ambers likely originated from Agathis or Agathis-like trees, Hymenaea is the primary source of many Miocene ambers. Field studies were conducted in New Caledonia and Madagascar to collect Defaunation resin (resin produced after 1760 AD (Anno Domini)). Arthropods were collected with yellow sticky and Malaise traps in New Caledonia, Madagascar, and Mexico. Cretaceous and Miocene ambers, copals (2.58 Ma to 1760 AD), and Defaunation resins from various regions were analysed to compare arthropod trapping patterns.
Results
Actuotaphonomic results show lower number of arthropods trapped in Agathis Defaunation resin, with a non-uniform distribution, compared to the abundant and uniformly distributed arthropods trapped in Hymenaea Defaunation resin. The lower number of arthropod inclusions in the trunk resin of the Agathis trees is attributed to the rapid polymerisation of that resin. Under the same experimental conditions, the arthropods in Agathis Defaunation resin plot far from the arthropods collected in the yellow sticky and Malaise traps, while the arthropods in Hymenaea Defaunation resin plot close to the arthropods in the yellow sticky traps.
Conclusions
These findings confirm different resin trapping patterns between Agathis and Hymenaea, with significant implications for interpreting the amber record. The fauna trapped by Hymenaea resin closely resembles the arthropod biocoenosis that live in and around the trunks, indicating autochthony and close relationship with the forest ecosystem, unlike Agathis resin. These results improve our understanding of arthropod trapping biases in resin and lead us to reconsider previously proposed interpretations of Cretaceous forest biocoenoses.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the family Caridad, owners of the Museo Mundo del Ámbar in Santo Domingo, S.B. Brower, F.A. Aquel Fernández, and Y.H. Shih (Dominican Republic) for their invaluable support, assistance during the scientific fieldwork, and donation of amber and copal/Defaunation resin pieces. Special thanks are given to R. Ravelomanana, M. Asensi, M. Madiomanana, and J. Andrianabo (Madagascar) for their dedicated assistance during fieldwork. Gratitude is expressed to Dr T. Rakotondrazafy, Director of the Départ. de Paléontologie et Anthropologie Biologique, and Dr E.M. Randrianarisoa, Director of the Départ. d’Entomologie, both at the Université d’Antananarivo (Madagascar), for their valuable help and advice in navigating administrative arrangements. The authors wish to acknowledge the contribution of the team at the Malagasy Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments (ICTE/MICET) for their support in the administrative development of the fieldwork in Madagascar. Thanks also go to J. Manauté and J. Delafenêtre from Parc Provincial de la Rivière Bleue, New Caledonia, for their support and assistance during fieldwork. The Direction de l’Environnement (DENV) Province Sud from Nouvelle Calédonie is acknowledged for granting the necessary fieldwork permits. Appreciation is extended to R. Kunz of the Senckenberg Research Institute (SMF) for his efforts in sorting, preparing and cataloguing the resin and copal collection deposited at the SMF and for the photos in the Figure 6H and I. Further gratitude is directed toward R. López del Valle (Spain) for their contribution to sorting, preparing, and cataloguing the Spanish amber. Thanks are due to Eduardo Espílez from Fundación Conjunto Paleontológico de Teruel-Dinópolis for cataloguing and curation of the Cretaceous Spanish amber from Teruel, and the director of that institution Dr Alberto Cobos. We would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback and corrections, which helped to improve the manuscript. We would like to extend our gratitude to José Antonio Peñas for his artistic illustration of Fig. 1.
Funding
Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This work was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades scientific projects CGL2017-84419/AEI/FEDER, UE, and PID2022-137316NB, funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF/EU; by DEGAPA-UNAM through the project PAPIIT IN113923; by the programme RYC2022-037026-I, funded by AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the FSE+; by the Consejería de Industria, Turismo, Innovación, Transporte y Comercio of the Gobierno de Cantabria through the semi-public enterprise EL SOPLAO S.L. [research agreement #20963 with Universitat de Barcelona and research contract Ref. VAPC 20225428 to Instituto Geológico y Minero de España—Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, both 2022–2025]; by the German VolkswagenStiftung (Project N. 90946); and the DFG project 457837041 (SO 894/6-1).