Increased Longevities of Post-Paleozoic Marine Genera After Mass Extinctions

doi:10.1126/science.1089719

Account Information

Guest Alerts | Access Rights | My Account | Sign In

Reports

Increased Longevities of Post-Paleozoic Marine Genera After Mass Extinctions

Arnold I. Miller¹^* and Michael Foote²

Cohorts of marine taxa that originated during recoveries frommass extinctions were commonly more widespread spatially thanthose originating at other times. Coupled with the recognitionof a correlation between the geographic ranges and temporallongevities of marine taxa, this observation predicts that recoverytaxa were unusually long-lived geologically. We analyzed thispossibility by assessing the longevities of marine genus cohortsthat originated in successive substages throughout the Phanerozoic.Results confirm that several mass extinction recovery cohortswere significantly longer lived than other cohorts, but thiseffect was limited to the post-Paleozoic, suggesting differencesin the dynamics of Paleozoic versus post-Paleozoic diversification.

¹ Department of Geology, University of Cincinnati, Post Office Box 210013, Cincinnati, OH 45221–0013, USA.
² Department of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, 5734 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: arnold.miller{at}uc.edu

Read the Full Text

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:

Mass extinctions and macroevolution.: D. Jablonski (2005)
Paleobiology 31, 192-210
| Abstract » | Full Text » | PDF »

How Physiological Methods and Concepts Can Be Useful in Conservation Biology.: C. Carey (2005)
Integr. Comp. Biol. 45, 4-11
| Abstract » | Full Text » | PDF »