Palaeoecology and trophic structure of selected Cambrian and Ordovician fossil assemblages in the Barrandian area

The goal of the proposed project is to analyse the functional morphology and taphonomy of microscopical and macroscopical rests of fossils and their assignment to the basic categories of the trophic web. Such a assignment to individual categories makes possible to reconstruct relations of Lower Cambrian to Middle Ordovician organisms of the Barrandian area. The project will provide a model of relations within the Cambrian to Middle Ordovician ecosystem within six selected assemblages. Planctonic and benthic primary producers of the organic matter served as a basis of the trophic pyramide, which was used by different types of consumers (filtrating echinoderms, hyolithids, brachiopods etc.). Such an analyse coud use the already existing data about frequency of separate taxa and functional morphology existing for some groups of invertebrates (e.g. trilobites, hyolithids, brachiopods, echinoderms).