Measuring Past Biodiversity

Jackson, Jeremy B. C.; Johnson, Kenneth G.

doi:10.1126/science.1063789

Cited by 220 publications

(103 citation statements)

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“…Also, although Alroy and others (11) recently suggested that the Cenozoic diversity increase may not be as large as currently thought, the techniques used in their analyses turn out to not account for all sources of diversity (24). Other views include those of Jackson and Johnson (12), who have recently argued that diversity may have increased more than recorded in the Sepkoski database. Regardless of the outcome of debate about overall Cenozoic diversity history, the pattern of proportional diversity should not be subject to stratigraphic sampling bias.…”

Section: A Note On Sampling Biasmentioning

confidence: 97%

Anatomical and ecological constraints on Phanerozoic animal diversity in the marine realm

Bambach

Knoll

Sepkoski

2002

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

207

156

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We grouped the fossil records of marine animal genera into suites defined by function and physiology. The stratigraphic coherence of the resulting diversity history indicates the importance of ecological structure in constraining taxonomic richness through time. The proportional representation of major functional groups was stably maintained for intervals as long as 200 million years, despite evolutionary turnover and changes in total diversity. Early Paleozoic radiations established stable ecosystem relationships, and thereafter only the great era-bounding mass extinctions were able to break patterns of incumbency, permitting the emergence of new community structures with distinct proportional diversity relationships.

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Section: A Note On Sampling Biasmentioning

confidence: 97%

Anatomical and ecological constraints on Phanerozoic animal diversity in the marine realm

Bambach

Knoll

Sepkoski

2002

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

207

156

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“…Conspicuously absent from our discussion, however, is any analysis of the longstanding debate about the ups and downs of the diversity of life throughout the Phanerozoic (since 530 Mya). This is because the data so far used are so poor [7,8] that we still do not know whether diversity was similar between the Paleozoic (543-250 Mya) and Cenozoic (since 65.5 Mya) [9] or increased several fold [10]. We believe that this question can be answered but will require intensive fieldwork and systematic sampling rather than reliance upon previously published studies [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…This is because most species are rare and are therefore commonly missed in all but the most detailed and extensive surveys [70,78,79]. One of the best ways to deal with this problem in both fossil and living material is to plot collector's curves of numbers of taxa encountered with increasing effort as measured by numbers of samples or specimens coupled with some index of diversity [7,39,40,54,79]. whether the absence of a species reflects either real limits to distribution or sampling bias.…”

Section: Box 1 Compositional Fidelity Of Fossil Assemblagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, with the advent of macroecology and the need to confront pressing problems of human impacts, ecologists are once again increasingly faced with deducing process from pattern without recourse to experimental manipulation, the situation that paleontologists have always faced. But paleontologists still have much to learn from ecologists about the nature of sampling and the data required to test alternative hypotheses about the processes driving biodiversity [7,10,54]. Until recently, most paleontological data collected was used to document new species, to understand the geographical, environmental and temporal extent of existing species, and to document and understand ecological relationships.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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What can we learn about ecology and evolution from the fossil record?

Jackson¹,

Erwin²

2006

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

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“…from species to genus, from genus to family, from family to order, etc). However, since the Palaeozoic, there has been a tumultuous appearance of the majority of the greater taxa, whereas in more recent times there has been a huge increment in the appearance of the number of minor taxa such as species and genera (Signor, 1978(Signor, , 1982(Signor, , 1985Raup, 1983;Benton, 1993Benton, , 2001Smith, 2001;Sepkoski, 2002;Lane & Benton, 2003;Bush & Bambach, 2004;Jackson & Johnson, 2001;Holland & Sclafani, 2015;but see, e.g., Mc Gowan & Smith, 2008;Ruban, 2010). Nearly all these minor taxa can, however, be inserted into already-known greater taxa (orders, classes, and phyla).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is biodiversity aging? Heuristic questions on the taxonomic diversity in the Phanerozoic

Amante¹

2018

Biodiversity Journal

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The trend of numerosity component of diversity was analysed from palaeontological data, according to various time intervals and taxonomical ranks. Taxa numerosity of lower (with respect to family), with a nearly exponential increase, vs. higher ranks (from order to macrotaxon), with mainly a logarithmic trend, confirms to follow quite different patterns over time. This dataset seems to fit with a more assortative hypothesis, for higher taxa and a more divisive one for lower taxa. Then, a model was built to quantify the relative weight, over time, of the above hypothetical evolutionary components of various taxa ranks; such ranks were identified, in a palaeontological approach, by the maximum number of recorded taxa or, in a phyletic approach, by the time duration based on genetic data. The trends obtained by this model agree with observed records and the hypothesis, to be verified, of a quite different evolutionary origin of macro-(phylum, class, order ranks) and micro-taxa (genus and species), during the transition between two main time phases: the first (evidently more assortative), mainly linked to the lateral sharing of characters, the second (evidently more divisive), mainly influenced by the ever growing morpho-physio-genetic isolation even for the protection of complex adaptations, as in the present, "modern species". INTRODUCTIONSince evolutionary theory was accepted as the only possible rational explanation of the life diversification in the biosphere -e.g., Gould (2002); see also Mayr (1982), evolutionary processes have received many and different interpretations. Two main question points have been particularly investigated: (i) the basis of the biological variability, and (ii) the factors orienting its evolution: see, e. g., Gould (2002). Moreover, genetics has provided experimental evidence of the "transition" from a species into another species, within a framework that has been defined "microevolution".However, there has been a contextual difficulty in explaining the great differences in morpho-physiological models, occurring among high-rank taxa like phyla, classes, and orders by means of merely micro-evolutionary processes (Stanley, 1979).Therefore, Stanley (1979) hypothesized a "decoupling" of selective ranks, between microevolution (selection among individuals) and macroevolution (species as individual units of selection, in macro-evolution, in analogy with specimens in micro-evolution). KEY WORDSEvolutionary models; genetic timing; macroevolution; taxonomic diversity."Iamque adeo fracta est aetas effetaque tellus vix animalia parva creat quae cuncta creavit saecla …" (Lucretius).

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Measuring Past Biodiversity

Cited by 220 publications

References 27 publications

Anatomical and ecological constraints on Phanerozoic animal diversity in the marine realm

Anatomical and ecological constraints on Phanerozoic animal diversity in the marine realm

What can we learn about ecology and evolution from the fossil record?

Is biodiversity aging? Heuristic questions on the taxonomic diversity in the Phanerozoic

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