Environmental determinants of extinction selectivity in the fossil record

Shanan E. Peters ()
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Shanan E. Peters: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA

Nature, 2008, vol. 454, issue 7204, 626-629

Abstract: Species extinctions: swimming against the tide of lost species How large-scale environmental factors influence the evolution of biological communities through geological time remains largely the subject of speculation and controversy. It has long been known that seafloor communities in the Palaeozoic era differed markedly from the subsequent Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Shanan Peters now explains why: in the Palaeozoic, seafloors were mostly based on carbonates, whereas succeeding ones were generally sandy. In addition the ebbs and flows of sea level and sediment deposition appear to be in step with species extinctions, primarily of marine plants and animals, raising the possibility that changes in ocean environments related to sea level influence rates of extinction and generally determine the composition of life in the oceans.

Date: 2008
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DOI: 10.1038/nature07032

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