Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 28 March 1986:
Vol. 231. no. 4745, pp. 1528 - 1533
DOI: 10.1126/science.11542058
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Science, Vol 231, Issue 4745, 1528-1533
Copyright © 1986 by American Association for the Advancement of Science

articles

Biological extinction in earth history

DM Raup

Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, IL 60637, USA.

Virtually all plant and animal species that have ever lived on the earth are extinct. For this reason alone, extinction must play an important role in the evolution of life. The five largest mass extinctions of the past 600 million years are of greatest interest, but there is also a spectrum of smaller events, many of which indicate biological systems in profound stress. Extinction may be episodic at all scales, with relatively long periods of stability alternating with short-lived extinction events. Most extinction episodes are biologically selective, and further analysis of the victims and survivors offers the greatest chance of deducing the proximal causes of extinction. A drop in sea level and climatic change are most frequently invoked to explain mass extinctions, but new theories of collisions with extraterrestrial bodies are gaining favor. Extinction may be constructive in a Darwinian sense or it may only perturb the system by eliminating those organisms that happen to be susceptible to geologically rare stresses.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Colloquium Paper: Dynamics of origination and extinction in the marine fossil record.
J. Alroy (2008)
PNAS 105, 11536-11542
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
A TEST OF BIOGEOGRAPHICAL, ENVIRONMENTAL, AND ECOLOGICAL EFFECT ON MIDDLE AND LATE TRIASSIC BRACHIOPOD AND BIVALVE ABUNDANCE PATTERNS.
N. BONUSO and D. J. BOTTJER (2008)
Palaios 23, 43-54
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
How can a knowledge of the past help to conserve the future? Biodiversity conservation and the relevance of long-term ecological studies.
K. J Willis, M. B Araujo, K. D Bennett, B. Figueroa-Rangel, C. A Froyd, and N. Myers (2007)
Phil Trans R Soc B 362, 175-187
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
THE RANCHOLABREAN RECORD OF CARNIVORA: TAPHONOMIC EFFECT OF BODY SIZE, HABITAT BREADTH, AND THE PRESERVATION POTENTIAL OF CAVES.
J. MUNOZ-DURAN and B. VAN VALKENBURGH (2006)
Palaios 21, 424-430
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Species lifetime distribution for simple models of ecologies.
S. Pigolotti, A. Flammini, M. Marsili, and A. Maritan (2005)
PNAS 102, 15747-15751
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
On the continuity of background and mass extinction.
(2003)
Paleobiology 29, 455-467
Power Law Distribution of Chromosome Aberrations in Cancer.
A. Frigyesi, D. Gisselsson, F. Mitelman, and M. Hoglund (2003)
Cancer Res. 63, 7094-7097
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Inferring temporal patterns of preservation, origination, and extinction from taxonomic survivorship analysis.
(2001)
Paleobiology 27, 602-630
Heart urchins at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary: a tale of two clades.
(2001)
Paleobiology 27, 140-158
The Fossil Record of Cretaceous Tetrapods.
(2000)
Palaios 15, 161-165
Competitive displacement among post-Paleozoic cyclostome and cheilostome bryozoans.
(2000)
Paleobiology 26, 7-18
Impacts and marine invertebrate extinctions.
N. MacLeod (1998)
Geological Society, London, Special Publications 140, 217-246
   Abstract »    PDF »
Extinctions: A Paleontological Perspective.
D. Jablonski and D. JABLONSKI (1991)
Science 253, 754-757
   PDF »
Mass extinctions: the view of a sceptic.
A. HOFFMAN (1989)
Journal of the Geological Society 146, 21-35
   Abstract »    PDF »
A Substantial Bias in Nonparametric Tests for Periodicity in Geophysical Data.
S. M. STIGLER and M. J. WAGNER (1987)
Science 238, 940-945
   Abstract »    PDF »
Mutation, specialization, and hypersensitivity in highly optimized tolerance.
T. Zhou, J. M. Carlson, and J. Doyle (2002)
PNAS 99, 2049-2054
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)