Environmental determinants of extinction selectivity in the fossil record

• Published in: Nature Vol. 454; no. 7204; pp. 626 - 629
• Main Author: Peters, Shanan E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 31.07.2008; Nature Publishing; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Biological Evolution; Biota; Carbonates - analysis; Causes of; Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Endangered & extinct species; Environment; Environmental changes; Exact sciences and technology; Expansion & contraction; Extinction; Extinction, Biological; Fossils; Humanities and Social Sciences; Invertebrate paleontology; letter; Marine; Marine Biology; Mass extinction theory; Mass extinctions; multidisciplinary; Natural selection; Paleontology; Paleozoic; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Sedimentary rocks; Selection, Genetic; Silicon Dioxide - analysis; Species extinction; Stratigraphy; United States; Blastoidea; Echinodermata; Anthozoa; Brachiopoda; global; Gastropoda; Crustacea; Coelenterata; extinction; Crinozoa; Bivalvia; Echinoidea; correlation coefficient; Asteroidea; Asterozoa; siliciclastics; Stelleroidea; carbonates; Crinoidea; Echinozoa; sedimentary rocks; Articulata; Mandibulata; marine environment; Arthropoda; Invertebrata; Mollusca; biostratigraphy; Phanerozoic; invertebrates; Malacostraca
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687; 1476-4687; 1476-4679
• DOI: 10.1038/nature07032

Species extinctions: swimming against the tide of lost species How large-scale environmental factors influence the evolution of biological communities through geological time remains largely the subject of speculation and controversy. It has long been known that seafloor communities in the Palaeozoic era differed markedly from the subsequent Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Shanan Peters now explains why: in the Palaeozoic, seafloors were mostly based on carbonates, whereas succeeding ones were generally sandy. In addition the ebbs and flows of sea level and sediment deposition appear to be in step with species extinctions, primarily of marine plants and animals, raising the possibility that changes in ocean environments related to sea level influence rates of extinction and generally determine the composition of life in the oceans. Seafloor communities in the Palaeozoic Era differed markedly from the subsequent Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. This is because in the Palaeozoic, seafloors were mostly based on carbonates, whereas succeeding ones were generally sandy. The causes of mass extinctions and the nature of biological selectivity during extinction events remain central questions in palaeobiology. Although many different environmental perturbations have been invoked as extinction mechanisms 1 , 2 , 3 , it has long been recognized that fluctuations in sea level coincide with many episodes of biotic turnover 4 , 5 , 6 . Recent work supports the hypothesis that changes in the areas of epicontinental seas have influenced the macroevolution of marine animals 7 , 8 , but the extent to which differential environmental turnover has contributed to extinction selectivity remains unknown. Here I use a new compilation of the temporal durations of sedimentary rock packages to show that carbonate and terrigenous clastic marine shelf environments have different spatio-temporal dynamics and that these dynamics predict patterns of genus-level extinction, extinction selectivity and diversity among Sepkoski’s Palaeozoic and modern evolutionary faunae 9 . These results do not preclude a role for biological interactions or unusual physical events as drivers of macroevolution, but they do suggest that the turnover of marine shelf habitats and correlated environmental changes have been consistent determinants of extinction, extinction selectivity and the shifting composition of the marine biota during the Phanerozoic eon.