Late Cretaceous vertebrate faunal assemblages of the Manitoba escarpment, Canada: Implications for Western Interior Seaway provinciality and biodiversity

Community zonation of the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway (WIS) has been suggested for bivalves, cephalopods, foraminifera, gastropods, and tetrapods. Most proposed WIS community zones consist of a northern and southern subprovince with a gradational boundary across central or south-central North America. Since it has been over three decades since the WIS community zonation hypothesis has been investigated for vertebrates, recent radiometric age determinations, taxonomic revisions, additional specimen discoveries, and recently available online museum specimen catalogues allow for an updated description of Manitoba (MB) escarpment faunal assemblages and testing of the community zonation hypothesis. Nine time bins were used to represent nine Upper Cretaceous lithostratigraphic units of the MB escarpment to test the zonation hypothesis consistency for nearly the entire Late Cretaceous (~71–95 Ma). Relatively high genus-level community similarity values (25–50%) of south-central WIS localities and low values (<20%) of localities furthest north and south support the existence of a central subprovince during late Cenomanian to early Turonian and late Coniacian to early Campanian times, when the gradational subprovincial boundary would have been furthest south between Kansas and Texas localities. Comparatively low genus-level community similarity values (<25%) of all localities south of MB during mid-Cenomanian and early to mid-Campanian times indicate the southern subprovincial boundary was farthest north between MB and South Dakota localities during these time intervals and had migrated throughout the Late Cretaceous. This work highlights significant fluctuations in vertebrate community zonation throughout the WIS through time and space and offers insight into the magnitude of compositional and palaeoecological changes that can occur in shallow marine vertebrate communities over an approximately 25 million year interval.