Geologic constraints on the macroevolutionary history of marine animals

Abstract

The causes of mass extinctions and the nature of taxonomic radiations are central questions in paleobiology. Several episodes of taxonomic turnover in the fossil record, particularly the major mass extinctions, are generally thought to transcend known biases in the geologic record and are widely interpreted as distinct macroevolutionary phenomena that require unique forcing mechanisms. Here, by using a previously undescribed compilation of the durations of sedimentary rock sequences, I compare the rates of expansion and truncation of preserved marine sedimentary basins to rates of origination and extinction among Phanerozoic marine animal genera. Many features of the highly variable record of taxonomic first and last occurrences in the marine animal fossil record, including the major mass extinctions, the frequency distribution of genus longevities, and short-and long-term patterns of genus diversity, can be predicted on the basis of the temporal continuity and quantity of preserved sedimentary rock. Although these results suggest that geologically mediated sampling biases have distorted macroevolutionary patterns in the fossil record, preservation biases alone cannot easily explain the extent to which the sedimentary record duplicates paleobiological patterns. Instead, these results suggest that the processes responsible for producing variability in the sedimentary rock record, such as plate tectonics and sea-level change, may have been dominant and consistent macroevolutionary forces throughout the Phanerozoic.biodiversity ͉ mass extinction ͉ paleobiology ͉ sedimentary rock ͉ sequence stratigraphy O ne of the most striking aspects of the marine animal fossil record is that it preserves a volatile history of biodiversity and rates of taxonomic origination and extinction. Understanding the causes and evolutionary consequences of this volatility is one of the central goals of paleobiology. It has long been recognized, however, that the quantity of preserved sedimentary rock varies over short and long intervals of geologic time (1-3) and that this variation is correlated with several important macroevolutionary patterns in the fossil record, including changes in biodiversity (4-8) and rates of taxonomic extinction (4, 9, 10). The mutual correlations between preserved rock quantity and macroevolutionary patterns have been interpreted as evidence for either preservation biases that distort the apparent timings of extinction and origination in the fossil record (bias hypothesis) (4-7, 10) or a common pattern that is induced by processes, such as sea level fluctuations, plate tectonics, and resultant changes in marine shelf area, that affect both the amount of preserved rock and biological evolution (commoncause hypothesis) (6, 7, 9-12). Nevertheless, some workers have proffered that many intervals of turnover in the fossil record, particularly the major mass extinctions (13), are too substantial to be the result of preservation biases and are sufficiently distinct to require unique forcing mechanisms (14-17).Evaluati...

Climate change and the selective signature of the Late Ordovician mass extinction

“…2A): a Middle Ordovician to Late Ordovician rise followed by a Hirnantian drop and Early Silurian recovery. Notably, the number of Early Silurian packages rebounded much faster than sampled diversity, likely due to delayed immigration from other paleocontinents and terranes (33,40), lag between the creation of new habitat via cratonic flooding and evolutionary response in genus origination (33,41), and, possibly, to under-sampling of Rhuddanian-Aeronian strata (42). The per-capita extinction rate (43) of sampled genera and the package truncation rate peaked in the second half of the Katian stage; however, extinction rates remained slightly elevated in the Hirnantian stage despite a sharp decline in the rate of package truncations (Fig.…”

Strong coupling of predation intensity and diversity in the Phanerozoic fossil record

“…The two hypotheses above both assume implicitly that Sepkoski's genuslevel diversity curve and related patterns represent true biological signals. However, correlations between temporal changes in rock volume, sea level, and biodiversity (1,2,32), secular trends in diagenesis and sampling methodology (30), and samplestandardization efforts (33) suggest that Phanerozoic diversity curves may be, at least partly, a sampling artifact. Although standardization efforts may have overcompensated for sampling problems, and other biases may be less important than previously thought (30,31,34,35), recent regional analyses (36) and ambiguous tests of diagenesis-related biases (30) suggest that sampling and preservational issues should not be ignored just as yet.…”

“…For example, correlations between secular changes in rock volume, sea level, and biodiversity (1,2), ocean chemistry and types of biomineral skeletons (3), and local and global diversity levels (4) all opened major research avenues with broad historical relevance. More recently, key predictions of the important, and controversial, hypothesis of escalation (biotic systems have become more dangerous through the Phanerozoic, and organisms respond evolutionarily to their enemies) have been tested by using time series spanning the Phanerozoic (5).…”

Extinction as the loss of evolutionary history

“…Consequently paleontologists have developed new approaches designed to identify and correct for such biases (23)(24)(25)(26)(27). These techniques have been applied to correct for biases in our record of the end-Ordovician mass extinction (28).…”