Traditional analyses of Early Phanerozoic marine diversity at the genus level show an explosive radiation of marine life until the Late Ordovician, followed by a phase of erratic decline continuing until the end of the Palaeozoic, whereas a more recent analysis extends the duration of this early radiation into the Devonian. This catch-all approach hides an evolutionary and ecological key event long after the Ordovician radiation: the rapid occupation of the free water column by animals during the Devonian. Here, we explore the timing of the occupation of the water column in the Palaeozoic and test the hypothesis that ecological escalation led to fundamental evolutionary changes in the mid-Palaeozoic marine water column. According to our analyses, demersal and nektonic modes of life were probably initially driven by competition in the diversity-saturated benthic habitats together with the availability of abundant planktonic food. Escalatory feedback then promoted the rapid rise of nekton in the Devonian as suggested by the sequence and tempo of water-column occupation. h Devonian, diversity, ecology, food webs, nekton, plankton, radiation.

A major macroecological event happened long after the Cambrian Explosion and the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, the Devonian Nekton Revolution . It signifies the rapid occupation of the free water column with nektonic animals, an important component of all post-Silurian and Recent marine ecosystems. This event coincides with an explosive diversification of gnathostomes (jawed fishes), the initial radiation of ammonoids (extinct, externally shelled cephalopods), and the intensification of the radiation of mollusks with planktotrophic larvae or hatchlings (ammonoids, bivalves, gastropods; see also Frýda et al. 2008;Manda and Frýda 2010).Many externally shelled mollusk groups (ammonoids, dacryoconarids, gastropods, nautiloids, etc.) show a progressive coiling in their embryonic and/or post-embryonic conch in the Devonian

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