Hull et al. Nature 2015 The Collapse of Ecosystems Douglas H. Erwin Dept of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC And Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM
Hull et al. Nature 2015
The Collapse of Ecosystems
Douglas H. ErwinDept of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution, Washington DCAnd
Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM
Biological Classification
Body Fossils
Body Fossils
Marine invertebratesDurably Skeletonized
Geographically WidespreadLong Timespan
Bad Things Happen (fast)Things Get Better (slowly)
New Things Happen
Sepkoski Phanerozoic Diversity
Sepkoski 1999
Bambach, 2006, Ann. Rev Earth & Planet Sci
Bambach’s 18 Mass Extinctions
Mass Extinctions are Rapid
GSSP
Jin et al. 2000, Science
Species Stratigraphic Ranges at Meishan
Rapidity of Mass Extinctions
Sepkoski 1999
< 32 k.y 5 k.y.
< 20 k.y.
Primary vs. Secondary Extinctions
• What % of the total diversity loss was due to primary extinctions vs. secondary extinctions?
• If most extinctions were secondary, then the trigger may be less important than network structure and other biological factors
Bad Things Happen (fast)Things Get Better (slowly)
New Things Happen
Recovery patterns from models
Linear
Logistic
Hyperbolic
Sole et al. 2010 J Theor Biol
Sole et al. 2010 J Theor Biol
Bad Things Happen (fast)Things Get Better (slowly)
New Things Happen
Origination bursts mostly follow mass extinctions for marine genera
Sepkoski 1999
Exceptions
Post-Mass Extinction Diversifications
Ji et al. 2016 J. Vertebrate Paleo
Found in South China, Utah, British Columbia, Spitsbergen
Cartorhynchus Spathian, S. China. Motani et al. 2015 Nature
Icthyosaur Phylogeny
Nesbitt et al. 2017 Nature Benton et al., Earth Science Reviews 2013
E D Jarvis et al. Science 2014;346:1320-1331
Bambach, 2006, Ann. Rev Earth & Planet Sci
Bambach’s 18 Mass Extinctions
‘Missing’ extinctions
Regnier et al 2009 Conservation Biology
Major Themes
• Biodiversity crises have been ubiquitous throughout the Phanerozoic, at many scales
• Collapse is generally fast, recovery slow
• The temporal duration of past mass extinctions is similar to the projected duration of anthropogenic global warming
• New clades do not appear in the fossil record as the recovery progresses, but some evidence suggests that they may have originated pre-crisis
Hull et al. Nature 2015
Hull, Darroch, Erwin, 2015 Nature
Mass Rarity
Origin of New Clades
Crisis(Novelty Formation)
Appearance of New TaxaOpportunistic Ecosystems
Taxa DiversificationInnovation
Ecosystem ’recovery’