scholarly journals Appearance and disappearance rates of Phanerozoic marine animal paleocommunities

Geology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
A.D. Muscente ◽  
Rowan C. Martindale ◽  
Anirudh Prabhu ◽  
Xiaogang Ma ◽  
Peter Fox ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Marine Animal ◽  
Extinction Rate ◽  
Biological Interactions ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Turnover Rates ◽  
Biodiversity Crisis ◽  
Taxonomic Changes ◽  
Extinction Events ◽  
Fossil Data

Ecological observations and paleontological data show that communities of organisms recur in space and time. Various observations suggest that communities largely disappear in extinction events and appear during radiations. This hypothesis, however, has not been tested on a large scale due to a lack of methods for analyzing fossil data, identifying communities, and quantifying their turnover. We demonstrate an approach for quantifying turnover of communities over the Phanerozoic Eon. Using network analysis of fossil occurrence data, we provide the first estimates of appearance and disappearance rates for marine animal paleocommunities in the 100 stages of the Phanerozoic record. Our analysis of 124,605 fossil collections (representing 25,749 living and extinct marine animal genera) shows that paleocommunity disappearance and appearance rates are generally highest in mass extinctions and recovery intervals, respectively, with rates three times greater than background levels. Although taxonomic change is, in general, a fair predictor of ecologic reorganization, the variance is high, and ecologic and taxonomic changes were episodically decoupled at times in the past. Extinction rate, therefore, is an imperfect proxy for ecologic change. The paleocommunity turnover rates suggest that efforts to assess the ecological consequences of the present-day biodiversity crisis should focus on the selectivity of extinctions and changes in the prevalence of biological interactions.

Summary

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. E. J. Newman ◽  
R. G. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Critical Point ◽  
Power Law ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Extinction Rate ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Power Law Distribution ◽  
Scale Free ◽  
Extinction Events ◽  
Fossil Data

In this book we have studied a large number of recent quantitative models aimed at explaining a variety of large-scale trends seen in the fossil record. These trends include the occurrence of mass extinctions, the distribution of the sizes of extinction events, the distribution of the lifetimes of taxa, the distribution of the numbers of species per genus, and the apparent decline in the average extinction rate. None of the models presented match all the fossil data perfectly, but all of them offer some suggestion of possible mechanisms which may be important to the processes of extinction and origination. In this chapter we conclude our review by briefly summarizing the properties and predictions of each of the models once more. Much of the interest in these models has focused on their ability (or lack of ability) to predict the observed values of exponents governing distributions of a number of quantities. In Table 7.1 we summarize the values of these exponents for each of the models. Most of the models we have described attempt to provide possible explanations for a few specific observations. (1) The fossil record appears to have a power-law (i.e., scale-free) distribution of the sizes of extinction events, with an exponent close to 2 (section 1.2.2.1). (2) The distribution of the lifetimes of genera also appears to follow a power law, with exponent about 1.7 (section 1.2.2.4). (3) The number of species per genus appears to follow a power law with exponent about 1.5 (section 1.2.3.1). One of the first models to attempt an explanation of these observations was the NK model of Kauffman and co-workers. In this model, extinction is driven by revolutionary avalanches. When tuned to the critical point between chaotic and frozen regimes, the model displays a power-law distribution of avalanche sizes with an exponent of about 1. It has been suggested that this could in turn lead to a power-law distribution of the sizes of extinction events, although the value of 1 for the exponent is not in agreement with the value 2 measured in the fossil extinction record.

Mass extinctions alter extinction and origination dynamics with respect to body size

2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1960) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro M. Monarrez ◽  
Noel A. Heim ◽  
Jonathan L. Payne
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Marine Animal ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Extinction Selectivity ◽  
Extinction Events ◽  
Mass Extinction Events ◽  
Marine Biosphere

Whether mass extinctions and their associated recoveries represent an intensification of background extinction and origination dynamics versus a separate macroevolutionary regime remains a central debate in evolutionary biology. The previous focus has been on extinction, but origination dynamics may be equally or more important for long-term evolutionary outcomes. The evolution of animal body size is an ideal process to test for differences in macroevolutionary regimes, as body size is easily determined, comparable across distantly related taxa and scales with organismal traits. Here, we test for shifts in selectivity between background intervals and the ‘Big Five’ mass extinction events using capture–mark–recapture models. Our body-size data cover 10 203 fossil marine animal genera spanning 10 Linnaean classes with occurrences ranging from Early Ordovician to Late Pleistocene (485–1 Ma). Most classes exhibit differences in both origination and extinction selectivity between background intervals and mass extinctions, with the direction of selectivity varying among classes and overall exhibiting stronger selectivity during origination after mass extinction than extinction during the mass extinction. Thus, not only do mass extinction events shift the marine biosphere into a new macroevolutionary regime, the dynamics of recovery from mass extinction also appear to play an underappreciated role in shaping the biosphere in their aftermath.

Extinction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark V. Barrow
Keyword(s):  
Endangered Species ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Captive Breeding ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Apex Predators ◽  
Biodiversity Crisis ◽  
Extinction Events ◽  
The 19Th Century

The prospect of extinction, the complete loss of a species or other group of organisms, has long provoked strong responses. Until the turn of the 18th century, deeply held and widely shared beliefs about the order of nature led to a firm rejection of the possibility that species could entirely vanish. During the 19th century, however, resistance to the idea of extinction gave way to widespread acceptance following the discovery of the fossil remains of numerous previously unknown forms and direct experience with contemporary human-driven decline and the destruction of several species. In an effort to stem continued loss, at the turn of the 19th century, naturalists, conservationists, and sportsmen developed arguments for preventing extinction, created wildlife conservation organizations, lobbied for early protective laws and treaties, pushed for the first government-sponsored parks and refuges, and experimented with captive breeding. In the first half of the 20th century, scientists began systematically gathering more data about the problem through global inventories of endangered species and the first life-history and ecological studies of those species. The second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries have been characterized both by accelerating threats to the world’s biota and greater attention to the problem of extinction. Powerful new laws, like the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973, have been enacted and numerous international agreements negotiated in an attempt to address the issue. Despite considerable effort, scientists remain fearful that the current rate of species loss is similar to that experienced during the five great mass extinction events identified in the fossil record, leading to declarations that the world is facing a biodiversity crisis. Responding to this crisis, often referred to as the sixth extinction, scientists have launched a new interdisciplinary, mission-oriented discipline, conservation biology, that seeks not just to understand but also to reverse biota loss. Scientists and conservationists have also developed controversial new approaches to the growing problem of extinction: rewilding, which involves establishing expansive core reserves that are connected with migratory corridors and that include populations of apex predators, and de-extinction, which uses genetic engineering techniques in a bid to resurrect lost species. Even with the development of new knowledge and new tools that seek to reverse large-scale species decline, a new and particularly imposing danger, climate change, looms on the horizon, threatening to undermine those efforts.

The biology of mass extinction: a palaeontological view

1989 ◽  
Vol 325 (1228) ◽  
pp. 357-368 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Individual Species ◽  
Ecological Groups ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
Evolutionary Patterns ◽  
Data Set ◽  
High Species Richness ◽  
Extinction Events

Extinctions are not biologically random: certain taxa or functional/ecological groups are more extinction-prone than others. Analysis of molluscan survivorship patterns for the end-Cretaceous mass extinctions suggests that some traits that tend to confer extinction resistance during times of normal (‘background’) levels of extinction are ineffectual during mass extinction. For genera, high species-richness and possession of widespread individual species imparted extinction-resistance during background times but not during the mass extinction, when overall distribution of the genus was an important factor. Reanalysis of Hoffman’s (1986) data ( Neues Jb. Geol. Palaont. Abh. 172, 219) on European bivalves, and preliminary analysis of a new northern European data set, reveals a similar change in survivorship rules, as do data scattered among other taxa and extinction events. Thus taxa and adaptations can be lost not because they were poorly adapted by the standards of the background processes that constitute the bulk of geological time, but because they lacked - or were not linked to - the organismic, species-level or clade-level traits favoured under mass-extinction conditions. Mass extinctions can break the hegemony of species-rich, well-adapted clades and thereby permit radiation of taxa that had previously been minor faunal elements; no net increase in the adaptation of the biota need ensue. Although some large-scale evolutionary trends transcend mass extinctions, post-extinction evolutionary pathways are often channelled in directions not predictable from evolutionary patterns during background times.

scholarly journals Quantifying ecological impacts of mass extinctions with network analysis of fossil communities

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (20) ◽  
pp. 5217-5222 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. D. Muscente ◽  
Anirudh Prabhu ◽  
Hao Zhong ◽  
Ahmed Eleish ◽  
Michael B. Meyer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Network Analysis ◽  
Ecological Impact ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
Ecological Change ◽  
Marine Animal ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Community Turnover ◽  
Ecological Changes ◽  
Extinction Events ◽  
Animal Communities

Mass extinctions documented by the fossil record provide critical benchmarks for assessing changes through time in biodiversity and ecology. Efforts to compare biotic crises of the past and present, however, encounter difficulty because taxonomic and ecological changes are decoupled, and although various metrics exist for describing taxonomic turnover, no methods have yet been proposed to quantify the ecological impacts of extinction events. To address this issue, we apply a network-based approach to exploring the evolution of marine animal communities over the Phanerozoic Eon. Network analysis of fossil co-occurrence data enables us to identify nonrandom associations of interrelated paleocommunities. These associations, or evolutionary paleocommunities, dominated total diversity during successive intervals of relative community stasis. Community turnover occurred largely during mass extinctions and radiations, when ecological reorganization resulted in the decline of one association and the rise of another. Altogether, we identify five evolutionary paleocommunities at the generic and familial levels in addition to three ordinal associations that correspond to Sepkoski’s Cambrian, Paleozoic, and Modern evolutionary faunas. In this context, we quantify magnitudes of ecological change by measuring shifts in the representation of evolutionary paleocommunities over geologic time. Our work shows that the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event had the largest effect on ecology, followed in descending order by the Permian–Triassic, Cretaceous–Paleogene, Devonian, and Triassic–Jurassic mass extinctions. Despite its taxonomic severity, the Ordovician extinction did not strongly affect co-occurrences of taxa, affirming its limited ecological impact. Network paleoecology offers promising approaches to exploring ecological consequences of extinctions and radiations.

Climate modelling of mass-extinction events: a review

2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Feulner
Keyword(s):  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Plate Tectonics ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Biological Species ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Climate Modelling ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Extinction Events ◽  
Mass Extinction Events

AbstractDespite tremendous interest in the topic and decades of research, the origins of the major losses of biodiversity in the history of life on Earth remain elusive. A variety of possible causes for these mass-extinction events have been investigated, including impacts of asteroids or comets, large-scale volcanic eruptions, effects from changes in the distribution of continents caused by plate tectonics, and biological factors, to name but a few. Many of these suggested drivers involve or indeed require changes of Earth's climate, which then affect the biosphere of our planet, causing a global reduction in the diversity of biological species. It can be argued, therefore, that a detailed understanding of these climatic variations and their effects on ecosystems are prerequisites for a solution to the enigma of biological extinctions. Apart from investigations of the paleoclimate data of the time periods of mass extinctions, climate-modelling experiments should be able to shed some light on these dramatic events. Somewhat surprisingly, however, only a few comprehensive modelling studies of the climate changes associated with extinction events have been undertaken. These studies will be reviewed in this paper. Furthermore, the role of modelling in extinction research in general and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Mass Extinctions as Statistical Phenomena: An Examination of the Evidence Using χ2 Tests and Bootstrapping

Paleobiology ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan E. Hubbard ◽  
Norman L. Gilinsky
Keyword(s):  
Late Cretaceous ◽  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Late Ordovician ◽  
Statistical Evidence ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Late Permian ◽  
Turnover Rates ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Extinction Events ◽  
Mass Extinction Events

Although much natural historical evidence has been adduced in support of the occurrence of several mass extinctions during the Phanerozoic, unambiguous statistical confirmation of the mass extinction phenomenon has remained elusive. Using bootstrapping techniques that have not previously been applied to the study of mass extinction, we have amassed strong or very strong statistical evidence for mass extinctions (see text for definitions) during the Late Ordovician, Late Permian, and Late Cretaceous. Bootstrapping therefore verifies three of the mass extinction events that were proposed by Raup and Sepkoski (1982). A small amount of bootstrapping evidence is also presented for mass extinctions in the Induan (Triassic) and Coniacean (Cretaceous) Stages, but high overall turnover rates (including high origination) in the Induan and uncertain estimates of the temporal duration of the Coniacean force us to conclude that the evidence is not compelling.We also present the results of more liberal X2 tests of the differences between expected and observed numbers of familial extinctions for stratigraphic stages. In addition to verifying the mass extinctions identified using bootstrapping, these analyses suggest that several stages that could not be verified as mass extinction stages using bootstrapping (including the last three in the Devonian, and the Norian Stage of the Triassic) should still be regarded as candidates for mass extinction. Further analysis will be required to test these stages in more detail.

A framework for the integrated analysis of the magnitude, selectivity, and biotic effects of extinction and origination

Paleobiology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Bush ◽  
Steve C. Wang ◽  
Jonathan L. Payne ◽  
Noel A. Heim
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Analysis ◽  
Marine Animal ◽  
Marine Biota ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Geologic Time ◽  
Biotic Effects ◽  
Stratigraphic Ranges ◽  
Biotic Change ◽  
Extinction Events ◽  
Separate Class

AbstractThe taxonomic and ecologic composition of Earth's biota has shifted dramatically through geologic time, with some clades going extinct while others diversified. Here, we derive a metric that quantifies the change in biotic composition due to extinction or origination and show that it equals the product of extinction/origination magnitude and selectivity (variation in magnitude among groups). We also define metrics that describe the extent to which a recovery (1) reinforced or reversed the effects of extinction on biotic composition and (2) changed composition in ways uncorrelated with the extinction. To demonstrate the approach, we analyzed an updated compilation of stratigraphic ranges of marine animal genera. We show that mass extinctions were not more selective than background intervals at the phylum level; rather, they tended to drive greater taxonomic change due to their higher magnitudes. Mass extinctions did not represent a separate class of events with respect to either strength of selectivity or effect. Similar observations apply to origination during recoveries from mass extinctions, and on average, extinction and origination were similarly selective and drove similar amounts of biotic change. Elevated origination during recoveries drove bursts of compositional change that varied considerably in effect. In some cases, origination partially reversed the effects of extinction, returning the biota toward the pre-extinction composition; in others, it reinforced the effects of the extinction, magnifying biotic change. Recoveries were as important as extinction events in shaping the marine biota, and their selectivity deserves systematic study alongside that of extinction.

Morphologic and taxonomic history of Paleozoic ammonoids in time and morphospace

Paleobiology ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. B. Saunders ◽  
Emily Greenfest-Allen ◽  
David M. Work ◽  
S. V. Nikolaeva
Keyword(s):  
Mass Extinction ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Taxonomic Diversity ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Morphologic Variation ◽  
Components Analysis ◽  
Extinction Events ◽  
Mass Extinction Events

Principal components analysis (PCA) of 21 shell parameters (geometry, sculpture, aperture shape, and suture complexity) in 597 L. Devonian to L. Triassic ammonoid genera (spanning ~166 Myr) shows that eight basic morphotypes appeared within ~20 Myr of the first appearance of ammonoids. With one exception, these morphotypes persisted throughout the Paleozoic, occurring in ~75% of the ~5-Myr time bins used in this study. Morphotypes were not exclusive to particular lineages. Their persistence was not just a product of phylogenetic constraints or longevity, and multiple iterations of the same morphotypes occurred at different times and in different groups. Although mass extinction events severely condensed the range of morphologic variation and taxonomic diversity, the effects were short lived and most extinct morphotypes were usually iterated within 5 Myr. The most important effect of mass extinctions on ammonoid evolutionary history seems to have been their role in large scale taxonomic turnovers; they effectively eliminated previously dominant orders at the Frasnian/Famennian (F/F) (Agoniatitida), the Devonian/Mississippian (D/M) (Clymeniida), and the Permian/Triassic (P/T) (Goniatitida and Prolecanitida) extinctions. Survivors varied from two (P/T) to four (D/M) and five genera (F/F). These events generated sharp reductions in morphologic disparity at the D/M (58%) and at the P/T (59%), but there was a net increase at the F/F (38%). There was no obvious survival bias for particular morphotypes, but 64% are interpreted to have beenNautilus-like nektobenthic. The recurrence of particular combinations of morphology and their strong independence of phylogeny are strong arguments for functional constraint. Intervals between mass extinctions seem to have been relatively static in terms of morphotype numbers, in contrast to numbers of genera. Significant decreases in genus diversity (54%) and morphologic disparity (33%) commenced in the mid-Permian (Wordian/Capitanian boundary), well before the final P/T event.

Drilling predation increased in response to changing environments in the Caribbean Neogene

Paleobiology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 394-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill S. Leonard-Pingel ◽  
Jeremy B. C. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Fold Increase ◽  
Biological Interactions ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Predator Prey ◽  
Seagrass Meadows ◽  
Environmental Perturbations ◽  
Drilling Predation ◽  
Fossil Data

AbstractChanges in the physical environment are major drivers of evolutionary change, either through direct effects on the distribution and abundance of species or more subtle shifts in the outcome of biological interactions. To investigate this phenomenon, we built a fossil data set of drilling gastropod predation on bivalve prey for the last 11 Myr to determine how the regional collapse in Caribbean upwelling and planktonic productivity affected predator–prey interactions. Contrary to theoretical expectations, predation increased nearly twofold after productivity declined, while the ratio of drilling predators to prey remained unchanged. This increase reflects a gradual, several-fold increase in the extent of shallow-water coral reefs and seagrass meadows in response to the drop in productivity that extended over several million years. Drilling predation is uniformly higher in biogenic habitats than in soft sediments. Thus, changes in predation intensity were driven by a shift in dominant habitats rather than a direct effect of decreased productivity. Most previous analyses of predation through time have not accounted for variations in environmental conditions, raising questions about the patterns observed. More fundamentally, however, the consequences of large-scale environmental perturbations may not be instantaneous, especially when changes in habitat and other aspects of local environmental conditions cause cascading series of effects.

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