Temporal patterns of barren intervals in the Phanerozoic

Smith, Andrew B.; McGowan, Alistair J.

doi:10.1666/07042.1

Cited by 26 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Studies of marine data sets show close correlation of diversity and map area, interpreted as evidence of a rock volume control on apparent diversity (e.g. Smith 2001Smith , 2007Smith & McGowan 2008), although a study of global map areas of terrestrial sediments found no such control on terrestrial diversity data (Kalmar & Currie 2010).…”

Section: Diversification Of Life On Land (A) Narrative Of Major Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of modern biodiversity on land

Benton

2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

139

107

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Comparative studies of large phylogenies of living and extinct groups have shown that most biodiversity arises from a small number of highly species-rich clades. To understand biodiversity, it is important to examine the history of these clades on geological time scales. This is part of a distinct 'phylogenetic expansion' view of macroevolution, and contrasts with the alternative, nonphylogenetic 'equilibrium' approach to the history of biodiversity. The latter viewpoint focuses on density-dependent models in which all life is described by a single global-scale model, and a case is made here that this approach may be less successful at representing the shape of the evolution of life than the phylogenetic expansion approach. The terrestrial fossil record is patchy, but is adequate for coarse-scale studies of groups such as vertebrates that possess fossilizable hard parts. New methods in phylogenetic analysis, morphometrics and the study of exceptional biotas allow new approaches. Models for diversity regulation through time range from the entirely biotic to the entirely physical, with many intermediates. Tetrapod diversity has risen as a result of the expansion of ecospace, rather than niche subdivision or regional-scale endemicity resulting from continental break-up. Tetrapod communities on land have been remarkably stable and have changed only when there was a revolution in floras (such as the demise of the Carboniferous coal forests, or the Cretaceous radiation of angiosperms) or following particularly severe mass extinction events, such as that at the end of the Permian.

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Section: Diversification Of Life On Land (A) Narrative Of Major Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of modern biodiversity on land

Benton

2010

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

139

107

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“…Many attempted to infer how sampling biases have impacted taxonomic richness, for example, by comparing proxies such as the number of fossiliferous formations, number of localities, or outcrop area to diversity curves (Benton et al 2004; Fröbisch 2008; Barrett et al 2009; Benson et al 2010; Benson and Upchurch 2013). Recent studies have proposed that proxies for rock volume, such as the geographic spread or outcropping surface area, could be used and measured using geographic information systems and then compared with diversity curves (Smith and McGowan 2007, 2008; Mannion et al 2011; Upchurch et al 2011; Dunhill et al 2012; Fröbisch 2013). The general conclusion reached by these studies is that geological sampling biases have an impact on short-term variation of diversity, mostly at a regional or local scale, although in some cases (e.g., Alroy 2010; Benson et al 2016), an effect has also been noticed on large-timescale fluctuations of diversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the completeness of the fossil record: comparison of different methods applied to parareptilian tetrapods (Vertebrata: Sauropsida)

2016

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As paleontological studies are generally distorted by gaps and biases in the fossil record, it is important to assess its completeness. Here we address the fossil record of Parareptilia, a Permian–Triassic amniote clade, applying two measures of specimen completeness: the skeletal completeness metric (SCM) and the character completeness metric (CCM). The SCM quantifies how much of the skeletal material of a taxon is preserved, whereas the CCM measures the amount of phylogenetic information available. The latter was implemented using two different approaches. In this study, we compare three completeness metrics. Two CCM implementations show a strong correlation with each other, but only the second implementation of the CCM correlates significantly with the SCM, possibly due to character selection in phylogenetic data sets. There is no correlation between diversity of parareptiles and their completeness, implying that the observed fluctuations in diversity are not driven by the completeness of the fossils. The mean completeness of parareptiles through time is consistently high compared with previously studied tetrapod clades, suggesting that most parareptile taxa are based on reasonably complete specimens. Clade-specific differences reveal no link between body size and completeness. However, the analyses confirm the impact of ecology, with aquatic mesosaurids being better preserved than terrestrial taxa.

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“…The rock record was thought to reflect a primarily biotic signal because several kinds of data suggested this interpretation (Sepkoski et al 1981). Recent studies, however, suggest that the rock record is subject to taphonomic megabias (Peters and Foote 2001;Smith et al 2001;Smith 2003;Adrain and Westrop 2003;McGowan and Smith 2008;Smith and McGowan 2008). Methods have been proposed to correct for incompleteness and sampling bias in the Phanerozoic fossil record (Alroy et al 2001;Kidwell and Holland 2002) so that the remaining signal can be interpreted biologi cally.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The completeness of the continental fossil record and its impact on patterns of diversification

Kalmar¹,

Currie²

2010

Paleobiology

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Did organisms diversify in different ways on land and in the marine realm over the Phanerozoic, or do the different diversification curves of continental and marine organisms reflect primarily methodological artifacts? To answer this question, a quantitative assessment of the completeness of the global continental fossil record is indispensable. We used comparisons between continental and marine fossil diversity and between past and present-day patterns of continental diversity to assess the absolute and relative completeness of the continental fossil record. Collector's curves of the number of described families over the past 200 years suggest that the global continental fossil record, and even that of European and North American tetrapods, is still highly incomplete. Nevertheless, relative proportions of major continental and marine taxa, patterns of tetrapod endemism, and familial durations suggest that the family-level continental fossil record is reasonably representative. We found that, although continental fossil richness is correlated with the amount of terrestrial clastic sediment available for sampling, the exponential diversification curve of continental metazoans is unlikely to be an artifact of this rock bias. Diversification of the continental fauna appears to have been essentially exponential since the Devonian, with little evidence of major extinction events.

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Temporal patterns of barren intervals in the Phanerozoic

Cited by 26 publications

References 16 publications

The origins of modern biodiversity on land

The origins of modern biodiversity on land

Assessing the completeness of the fossil record: comparison of different methods applied to parareptilian tetrapods (Vertebrata: Sauropsida)

The completeness of the continental fossil record and its impact on patterns of diversification

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