scholarly journals The latitudinal diversity gradient of tetrapods across the Permo-Triassic mass extinction and recovery interval

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1929) ◽  
pp. 20201125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bethany J. Allen ◽  
Paul B. Wignall ◽  
Daniel J. Hill ◽  
Erin E. Saupe ◽  
Alexander M. Dunhill
Keyword(s):  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Middle Triassic ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Late Permian ◽  
Biodiversity Patterns ◽  
Latitudinal Diversity Gradient ◽  
Earth History ◽  
Diversity Gradient

The decline in species richness from the equator to the poles is referred to as the latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG). Higher equatorial diversity has been recognized for over 200 years, but the consistency of this pattern in deep time remains uncertain. Examination of spatial biodiversity patterns in the past across different global climate regimes and continental configurations can reveal how LDGs have varied over Earth history and potentially differentiate between suggested causal mechanisms. The Late Permian–Middle Triassic represents an ideal time interval for study, because it is characterized by large-scale volcanic episodes, extreme greenhouse temperatures and the most severe mass extinction event in Earth history. We examined terrestrial and marine tetrapod spatial biodiversity patterns using a database of global tetrapod occurrences. Terrestrial tetrapods exhibit a bimodal richness distribution throughout the Late Permian–Middle Triassic, with peaks in the northern low latitudes and southern mid-latitudes around 20–40° N and 60° S, respectively. Marine reptile fossils are known almost exclusively from the Northern Hemisphere in the Early and Middle Triassic, with highest diversity around 20° N. Reconstructed terrestrial LDGs contrast strongly with the generally unimodal gradients of today, potentially reflecting high global temperatures and prevailing Pangaean super-monsoonal climate system during the Permo-Triassic.

scholarly journals Flat latitudinal diversity gradient caused by the Permian–Triassic mass extinction

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (30) ◽  
pp. 17578-17583 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haijun Song ◽  
Shan Huang ◽  
Enhao Jia ◽  
Xu Dai ◽  
Paul B. Wignall ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Middle Triassic ◽  
Early Triassic ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Latitudinal Diversity Gradient ◽  
Diversity Gradient ◽  
Environmental Extremes ◽  
Low Latitudes ◽  
Marine Fossils ◽  
Selective Extinction

The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) is recognized as one of the most pervasive, global patterns of present-day biodiversity. However, the controlling mechanisms have proved difficult to identify because many potential drivers covary in space. The geological record presents a unique opportunity for understanding the mechanisms which drive the LDG by providing a direct window to deep-time biogeographic dynamics. Here we used a comprehensive database containing 52,318 occurrences of marine fossils to show that the shape of the LDG changed greatly during the Permian–Triassic mass extinction from showing a significant tropical peak to a flattened LDG. The flat LDG lasted for the entire Early Triassic (∼5 My) before reverting to a modern-like shape in the Middle Triassic. The environmental extremes that prevailed globally, especially the dramatic warming, likely induced selective extinction in low latitudes and accumulation of diversity in high latitudes through origination and poleward migration, which combined together account for the flat LDG of the Early Triassic.

scholarly journals Physiological diversity, biodiversity patterns and global climate change: testing key hypotheses involving temperature and oxygen

2019 ◽  
Vol 374 (1778) ◽  
pp. 20190032 ◽  
Author(s):  
John I. Spicer ◽  
Simon A. Morley ◽  
Francisco Bozinovic
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Geographical Differences ◽  
Biodiversity Patterns ◽  
Biodiversity Crisis ◽  
Physiological Diversity ◽  
Ecological Patterns ◽  
Primary Output

Documenting and explaining global patterns of biodiversity in time and space have fascinated and occupied biologists for centuries. Investigation of the importance of these patterns, and their underpinning mechanisms, has gained renewed vigour and importance, perhaps becoming pre-eminent, as we attempt to predict the biological impacts of global climate change. Understanding the physiological features that determine, or constrain, a species' geographical range and how they respond to a rapidly changing environment is critical. While the ecological patterns are crystallizing, explaining the role of physiology has just begun. The papers in this volume are the primary output from a Satellite Meeting of the Society of Experimental Biology Annual Meeting, held in Florence in July 2018. The involvement of two key environmental factors, temperature and oxygen, was explored through the testing of key hypotheses. The aim of the meeting was to improve our knowledge of large-scale geographical differences in physiology, e.g. metabolism, growth, size and subsequently our understanding of the role and vulnerability of those physiologies to global climate warming. While such an aim is of heuristic interest, in the midst of our current biodiversity crisis, it has an urgency that is difficult to overstate. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Physiological diversity, biodiversity patterns and global climate change: testing key hypotheses involving temperature and oxygen’.

Comparative Earth History and Late Permian Mass Extinction

Science ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 273 (5274) ◽  
pp. 452-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. H. Knoll ◽  
R. K. Bambach ◽  
D. E. Canfield ◽  
J. P. Grotzinger
Keyword(s):  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Late Permian ◽  
Earth History ◽  
Permian Mass Extinction

scholarly journals Estimates of the magnitudes of major marine mass extinctions in earth history

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (42) ◽  
pp. E6325-E6334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven M. Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Marine Species ◽  
Ecological Diversity ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Late Permian ◽  
Marine Animals ◽  
Earth History ◽  
Enormous Amount ◽  
Terminal Permian ◽  
Combined Data

Procedures introduced here make it possible, first, to show that background (piecemeal) extinction is recorded throughout geologic stages and substages (not all extinction has occurred suddenly at the ends of such intervals); second, to separate out background extinction from mass extinction for a major crisis in earth history; and third, to correct for clustering of extinctions when using the rarefaction method to estimate the percentage of species lost in a mass extinction. Also presented here is a method for estimating the magnitude of the Signor–Lipps effect, which is the incorrect assignment of extinctions that occurred during a crisis to an interval preceding the crisis because of the incompleteness of the fossil record. Estimates for the magnitudes of mass extinctions presented here are in most cases lower than those previously published. They indicate that only ∼81% of marine species died out in the great terminal Permian crisis, whereas levels of 90–96% have frequently been quoted in the literature. Calculations of the latter numbers were incorrectly based on combined data for the Middle and Late Permian mass extinctions. About 90 orders and more than 220 families of marine animals survived the terminal Permian crisis, and they embodied an enormous amount of morphological, physiological, and ecological diversity. Life did not nearly disappear at the end of the Permian, as has often been claimed.

Toward an understanding of cosmopolitanism in deep time: a case study of ammonoids from the middle Permian to the Middle Triassic

Paleobiology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 533-549
Author(s):  
Xu Dai ◽  
Haijun Song
Keyword(s):  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Middle Triassic ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Geographic Range ◽  
Middle Permian ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Selective Extinction

AbstractCosmopolitanism occurred recurrently during the geologic past, especially after mass extinctions, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly known. Three theoretical models, not mutually exclusive, can lead to cosmopolitanism: (1) selective extinction in endemic taxa, (2) endemic taxa becoming cosmopolitan after the extinction and (3) an increase in the number of newly originated cosmopolitan taxa after extinction. We analyzed an updated occurrence dataset including 831 middle Permian to Middle Triassic ammonoid genera and used two network methods to distinguish major episodes of ammonoid cosmopolitanism during this time interval. Then, we tested the three proposed models in these case studies. Our results confirm that at least two remarkable cosmopolitanism events occurred after the Permian–Triassic and late Smithian (Early Triassic) extinctions, respectively. Partitioned analyses of survivors and newcomers revealed that the immediate cosmopolitanism event (Griesbachian) after the Permian–Triassic event can be attributed to endemic genera becoming cosmopolitan (model 2) and an increase in the number of newly originated cosmopolitan genera after the extinction (model 3). Late Smithian cosmopolitanism is caused by selective extinction in endemic taxa (model 1) and an increase in the number of newly originated cosmopolitan genera (model 3). We found that the survivors of the Permian–Triassic mass extinction did not show a wider geographic range, suggesting that this mass extinction is nonselective among the biogeographic ranges, while late Smithian survivors exhibit a wide geographic range, indicating selective survivorship among cosmopolitan genera. These successive cosmopolitanism events during severe extinctions are associated with marked environmental upheavals such as rapid climate changes and oceanic anoxic events, suggesting that environmental fluctuations play a significant role in cosmopolitanism.

scholarly journals Late Cenozoic onset of the latitudinal diversity gradient of North American mammals

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (26) ◽  
pp. 7189-7194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan D. Marcot ◽  
David L. Fox ◽  
Spencer R. Niebuhr
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
North American ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Temporal And Spatial Variation ◽  
Latitudinal Diversity Gradient ◽  
Terrestrial Mammals ◽  
Diversity Gradient ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Living Organisms

The decline of species richness from equator to pole, or latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG), is nearly universal among clades of living organisms, yet whether it was such a pervasive pattern in the geologic past remains uncertain. Here, we calculate the strength of the LDG for terrestrial mammals in North America over the past 65 My, using 27,903 fossil occurrences of Cenozoic terrestrial mammals from western North America downloaded from the Paleobiology Database. Accounting for temporal and spatial variation in sampling, the LDG was substantially weaker than it is today for most of the Cenozoic and the robust modern LDG of North American mammals evolved only over the last 4 My. The strength of the LDG correlates negatively with global temperature, suggesting a role of global climate patterns in the establishment and maintenance of the LDG for North American mammals.

The latitudinal diversity gradient in brush-footed butterflies (Nymphalidae): conserved ancestral tropical niche but different continental histories

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Chazot ◽  
Fabien L. Condamine ◽  
Gytis Dudas ◽  
Carlos Peña ◽  
Pavel Matos-Maraví ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Spatial Diversity ◽  
Extinction Rate ◽  
Latitudinal Diversity Gradient ◽  
Extinction Rates ◽  
Diversity Gradient ◽  
Speciation Rates ◽  
Global Increase ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Taxonomic Groups

AbstractThe latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) is arguably one of the most striking patterns in nature. The global increase in species richness toward the tropics across continents and taxonomic groups stimulated the formulation of many hypotheses to explain the underlying mechanisms of this pattern. We evaluated several of these hypotheses to explain spatial diversity patterns in the butterfly family, Nymphalidae, by assessing the contributions of speciation, extinction, and dispersal to the LDG, and also the extent to which these processes differ among regions at the same latitude. We generated a new, time-calibrated phylogeny of Nymphalidae based on 10 gene fragments and containing ca. 2,800 species (∼45% of extant diversity). Neither speciation nor extinction rate variations consistently explain the LDG among regions because temporal diversification dynamics differ greatly across longitude. For example, we found that Neotropical nymphalid diversity results from low extinction rates, not high speciation rates, and that biotic interchanges with other regions were rare. Southeast Asia was also characterized by a low speciation rate but, unlike the Neotropics, was the main source of dispersal events through time. Our results suggest that global climate change throughout the Cenozoic, particularly during the Eocene-Oligocene transition, combined with the conserved ancestral tropical niches, played a major role in generating the modern LDG of butterflies.

scholarly journals Conserved ancestral tropical niche but different continental histories explain the latitudinal diversity gradient in brush-footed butterflies

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Chazot ◽  
Fabien L. Condamine ◽  
Gytis Dudas ◽  
Carlos Peña ◽  
Ullasa Kodandaramaiah ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Climate ◽  
Spatial Diversity ◽  
Extinction Rate ◽  
Latitudinal Diversity Gradient ◽  
Extinction Rates ◽  
Diversity Gradient ◽  
Speciation Rates ◽  
Global Increase ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Taxonomic Groups

AbstractThe global increase in species richness toward the tropics across continents and taxonomic groups, referred to as the latitudinal diversity gradient, stimulated the formulation of many hypotheses to explain the underlying mechanisms of this pattern. We evaluate several of these hypotheses to explain spatial diversity patterns in a butterfly family, the Nymphalidae, by assessing the contributions of speciation, extinction, and dispersal, and also the extent to which these processes differ among regions at the same latitude. We generate a time-calibrated phylogeny containing 2,866 nymphalid species (~45% of extant diversity). Neither speciation nor extinction rate variations consistently explain the latitudinal diversity gradient among regions because temporal diversification dynamics differ greatly across longitude. The Neotropical diversity results from low extinction rates, not high speciation rates, and biotic interchanges with other regions are rare. Southeast Asia is also characterized by a low speciation rate but, unlike the Neotropics, is the main source of dispersal events through time. Our results suggest that global climate change throughout the Cenozoic, combined with tropical niche conservatism, played a major role in generating the modern latitudinal diversity gradient of nymphalid butterflies.

scholarly journals Out of the extratropics: the evolution of the latitudinal diversity gradient of Cenozoic marine plankton

2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1950) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nussaïbah B. Raja ◽  
Wolfgang Kiessling
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Opposite Direction ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Climatic Changes ◽  
Marine Plankton ◽  
Latitudinal Diversity Gradient ◽  
Diversity Gradient ◽  
Cenozoic Era ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Early Cenozoic

Many ecological and evolutionary hypotheses have been proposed to explain the latitudinal diversity gradient, i.e. the increase in species richness from the poles to the tropics. Among the evolutionary hypotheses, the ‘out of the tropics’ (OTT) hypothesis has received considerable attention. The OTT posits that the tropics are both a cradle and source of biodiversity for extratropical regions. To test the generality of the OTT hypothesis, we explored the spatial biodiversity dynamics of unicellular marine plankton over the Cenozoic era (the last 66 Myr). We find large-scale climatic changes during the Cenozoic shaped the diversification and dispersal of marine plankton. Origination was generally more likely in the extratropics and net dispersal was towards the tropics rather than in the opposite direction, especially during the warmer climates of the early Cenozoic. Although migration proportions varied among major plankton groups and climate phases, we provide evidence that the extratropics were a source of tropical microplankton biodiversity over the last 66 Myr.

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