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Co extinction rate. Open circles, latitudinal range size; filled circles, longitudinal range size. An extreme outlier in the Changhsingian Stage was excluded for clarity but does not affect the relationship because the substage contains a high extinction rate and a low effect size.
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Geographic range size is one of the few traits that promoted survivorship during both mass and background extinctions, but the exact reason (or reasons) why a large geographic range confers extinction resistance remains unclear. Proposed explanations have focused on the roles of dispersal ability, climate tolerance, global abundance, and widespread...
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... It is becoming increasingly accepted that the 'winners' and 'losers' during mass extinction events are not determined at random; instead, the possession of certain functional characteristics or traits may influence the probability of a clade becoming extinct during a mass extinction, an effect described as extinction selectivity (e.g. [29][30][31][32][33][34]). The importance of many characteristics in selectivity during mass extinction events has previously been debated, including biological traits such as body size, diet and motility [29,[32][33][34][35], and geographical 'traits' such as range size and occupied latitude [29,33,[36][37][38][39][40][41]. Comparing extinction selectivity patterns between mass extinction events may, therefore, provide insight into the consistency of selectivity signals during times of heightened extinction rates. ...
Many modern extinction drivers are shared with past mass extinction events, such as rapid climate warming, habitat loss, pollution and invasive species. This commonality presents a key question: can the extinction risk of species during past mass extinction events inform our predictions for a modern biodiversity crisis? To investigate if it is possible to establish which species were more likely to go extinct during mass extinctions, we applied a functional trait-based model of extinction risk using a machine learning algorithm to datasets of marine fossils for the end-Permian, end-Triassic and end-Cretaceous mass extinctions. Extinction selectivity was inferred across each individual mass extinction event, before testing whether the selectivity patterns obtained could be used to 'predict' the extinction selectivity exhibited during the other mass extinctions. Our analyses show that, despite some similarities in extinction selectivity patterns between ancient crises, the selectivity of mass extinction events is inconsistent, which leads to a poor predictive performance. This lack of predictability is attributed to evolution in marine ecosystems, particularly during the Mesozoic Marine Revolution, associated with shifts in community structure alongside coincident Earth system changes. Our results suggest that past extinctions are unlikely to be informative for predicting extinction risk during a projected mass extinction.
... Therefore, we conclude that the main factors leading to the cosmopolitanism of bivalves in the Induan were the selective extinction of endemics and the geographic expansion of survivors after the extinction. The former occurred because species with wider geographic ranges are not vulnerable to becoming extinct (Rode and Lieberman, 2004;Kiessling and Aberhan, 2007;Payne and Finnegan, 2007;Powell, 2007;Jablonski, 2008;Dunhill and Wills, 2015). The latter supports the ecological release model where survivors can extend their ranges to vacant niches caused by mass extinction (Harries et al., 1996). ...
... The geographic range is thought to be a significant factor contributing to the survival of marine mollusks during the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction (Jablonski, 2008). Specifically, the widespread genera were better able to resist mass extinctions while the narrow-ranging genera were filtered by extreme environmental events (Rode and Lieberman, 2004;Kiessling and Aberhan, 2007;Payne and Finnegan, 2007;Powell, 2007;Jablonski, 2008;Dunhill and Wills, 2015;Button et al., 2017). In other words, mass extinctions increased the proportion of widespread taxa compared to endemics (Jablonski, 2008). ...
... In other words, mass extinctions increased the proportion of widespread taxa compared to endemics (Jablonski, 2008). Moreover, species with broader geographic ranges are less susceptible to environmental fluctuations (Jablonski, 2005;Powell, 2007;Nürnberg and Aberhan, 2013;Dunhill and Wills, 2015;Foote et al., 2016). As a result, global biological taxonomic composition became more homogeneous. ...
... Geographical range size is considered to play a primary role in determining species survival both during background and mass extinctions, with species with a wide geographical range having higher possibilities of survival, and thus higher longevity (Payne and Finnegan 2007;Powell 2007;Casey et al. 2020). Species with wider geographical ranges are in fact supposed to have higher dispersal ability and wider thermal tolerance (Powell 2007). ...
... Geographical range size is considered to play a primary role in determining species survival both during background and mass extinctions, with species with a wide geographical range having higher possibilities of survival, and thus higher longevity (Payne and Finnegan 2007;Powell 2007;Casey et al. 2020). Species with wider geographical ranges are in fact supposed to have higher dispersal ability and wider thermal tolerance (Powell 2007). Overall, our data confirm this rule, as the convex hull area of all extinct species is smaller than the area occupied by extant species (Fig. 4, Table 3). ...
Understanding species vulnerability to extinction is one of the goals of conservation. Here we analyse a dataset of Plio-Pleistocene Mediterranean bivalve occurrences (families Veneridae, Pectinidae and Lucinidae), to reconstruct biodiversity change through time, and to test whether species occurrence frequency, geographic range and habitat specialization explained species survival or extinction. We found that biodiversity loss started soon after the Mid-Piacenzian warming Period, at ∼ 3.0 Ma, and continued as climate progressively cooled, up to the Gelasian. It was more gradual than expected, as some species found a temporary refugium in the warmer, eastern Mediterranean. Extinction was more intense for the epifaunal, mobile pectinids, compared to the infaunal, siphonate venerids and lucinids. Occurrence frequency, geographic range and habitat specialization were good predictors of species extinction for the Veneridae and the Lucinidae. For the Pectinidae habitat specialization was a good predictor of extinction, but not occurrence frequency and geographic range, as also some common and geographic widespread Pliocene species went extinct. In this family, extinction risk was better predicted by latitudinal range than geographic range. Habitat loss due to the fragmentation of carbonate palaeoenvironments and high metabolic rates related to large body size also played a role in pectinid extinction.
Supplementary material at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.6223137
... At least during the background macroevolutionary regime (Foote et al., 2008;Jablonski, 1986;Payne and Finnegan, 2007), the geographical range is a significant factor positively influencing the survivorship component of taxon fitness (Jablonski, 2008(Jablonski, , 2017. Additionally the duration of late Paleozoic brachiopod genera were strongly positively correlated with the extents of their (latitudinal as well as longitudinal) ranges, due to positive effects of the geographical range on the global abundance (Powell, 2007). Latitudinal range mostly reflects the range of temperatures; it co-varies with the climatic temperature conditions tolerated by a taxon. ...
... Therefore this study shows that range restriction of brachiopod genera, which was modulated by tectonic configurational changes, is expected to significantly contribute to restricting the success of this clade during the Triassic and Jurassic in the aftermath of the P-Tr extinction event. Longitude restriction of brachiopod genera was also determined earlier in the case of transition from Carboniferous to the Permian (Powell, 2007), reflecting temporally longer trend related to the formation of Pangaea described here. ...
The brachiopods constitute one of the major components of the marine metazoan fossil record. On the other hand their apparent decline in importance in forming benthic communities through the Phanerozoic is one of the most striking macroevolutionary and macroecological patterns. Here we analyzed changes in average latitudinal and longitudinal ranges – indices for success of spatial expansion of brachiopod genera – during post-Cambrian Phanerozoic, and compared their fluctuation and scaling behaviour to the changes in continental fragmentation. The results revealed that latitudinal ranges on the longest time scales were highly constrained, while longitudinal ranges shown persistent decrease. The scale-by-scale correlation analysis of Haar fluctuations revealed that there is positive functional dependence of longitudinal ranges at the longest time scales with continental fragmentation. Moreover the ratio of average longitudinal to latitudinal ranges was positively correlated to the continental fragmentation at all time scales. The long term minima in longitudinal ranges and the least elongated shapes in E-W direction of geographic ranges were found during the maximal amalgamation of the Pangaea during Triassic and Jurassic. The failure for brachiopods to regain the dominance in marine biosphere after P-Tr extinction should be related to the tectonic restrictions on their longitudinal ranges during the maximally supercontinental conditions of the planet. Therefore, the pattern exemplified by brachiopods shows that the spatial expansion success (fitness) of a major clade at an eon time scale could be a direct consequence of the multi-scale tectonic reconfigurations.
... Habitat loss is recognized as an important kill mechanism (Horseman of the Evolutionary Apocalypse #4) that can lead to mass extinction in the fossil record [37] and is a prime mechanism behind extinctions of modern species [44,91]. Although paleontological studies of geographic range abound (e.g., [116,138,207,231]), interpretation of the fossil data is difficult given time-averaging and spatial limitations of geological record (cf. Section 3.2). ...
Extinction of species, and even clades, is a normal part of the macroevolutionary process. However, several times in Earth history the rate of species and clade extinctions increased dramatically compared to the observed “background” extinction rate. Such episodes are global, short-lived, and associated with substantial environmental changes, especially to the carbon cycle. Consequently, these events are dubbed “mass extinctions” (MEs). Investigations surrounding the circumstances causing and/or contributing to mass extinctions are on-going, but consensus has not yet been reached, particularly as to common ME triggers or periodicities. In part this reflects the incomplete nature of the fossil and geologic record, which – although providing significant information about the taxa and paleoenvironmental context of MEs – is spatiotemporally discontinuous and preserved at relatively low resolution. Mathematical models provide an important opportunity to potentially compensate for missing linkages in data availability and resolution. Mathematical models may provide a means to connect ecosystem scale processes (i.e., the extinction of individual organisms) to global scale processes (i.e., extinction of whole species and clades). Such a view would substantially improve our understanding not only of how MEs precipitate, but also how biological and paleobiological sciences may inform each other. Here we provide suggestions for how to integrate mathematical models into ME research, starting with a change of focus from ME triggers to organismal kill mechanisms since these are much more standard across time and spatial scales. We conclude that the advantage of integrating mathematical models with standard geological, geochemical, and ecological methods is great and researchers should work towards better utilization of these methods in ME investigations.
... Therefore, we conclude that the main factors leading to the cosmopolitanism of bivalves in the Induan were the selective extinction of endemics and the geographic expansion of survivors after the extinction. The former occurred because species with wider geographic ranges are not vulnerable to becoming extinct (Rode and Lieberman, 2004;Kiessling and Aberhan, 2007;Payne and Finnegan, 2007;Powell, 2007;Jablonski, 2008;Dunhill and Wills, 2015). The latter supports the ecological release model where survivors can extend their ranges to vacant niches caused by mass extinction (Harries et al., 1996). ...
... The geographic range is thought to be a significant factor contributing to the survival of marine mollusks during the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction (Jablonski, 2008). Specifically, the widespread genera were better able to resist mass extinctions while the narrow-ranging genera were filtered by extreme environmental events (Rode and Lieberman, 2004;Kiessling and Aberhan, 2007;Payne and Finnegan, 2007;Powell, 2007;Jablonski, 2008;Dunhill and Wills, 2015;Button et al., 2017). In other words, mass extinctions increased the proportion of widespread taxa compared to endemics (Jablonski, 2008). ...
... In other words, mass extinctions increased the proportion of widespread taxa compared to endemics (Jablonski, 2008). Moreover, species with broader geographic ranges are less susceptible to environmental fluctuations (Jablonski, 2005;Powell, 2007;Nürnberg and Aberhan, 2013;Dunhill and Wills, 2015;Foote et al., 2016). As a result, global biological taxonomic composition became more homogeneous. ...
... This last trait may explain the great resilience to extinction of this lineage, since a correlation between geographic area and survival during mass and background extinctions has been demonstrated for several groups of invertebrates, e.g. Paleozoic brachiopods [10], marine molluscs [11,12], planktonic foraminifera [13] and ostracods [14]. It should be noted that in terrestrial environments a different pattern has been observed for vertebrates. ...
Today, the only living genus of coelacanth, Latimeria is represented by two species along the eastern coast of Africa and in Indonesia. This sarcopterygian fish is nicknamed a "living fossil", in particular because of its slow evolution. The large geographical distribution of Latimeria may be a reason for the great resilience to extinction of this lineage, but the lack of fossil records for this genus prevents us from testing this hypothesis. Here we describe isolated bones (right angular, incomplete basisphenoid, fragments of parasphenoid and pterygoid) found in the Cenomanian Woodbine Formation in northeast Texas that are referred to the mawsoniid coelacanth Mawsonia sp. In order to assess the impact of this discovery on the alleged characteristic of "living fossils" in general and of coelacanths in particular: 1) we compared the average time duration of genera of ray-finned fish and coelacanth in the fossil record; 2) we compared the biogeographic signal from Mawsonia with the signal from the rest of the vertebrate assemblage of the Woodbine formation; and 3) we compared these life traits with those of Latimeria . The stratigraphical range of Mawsonia is at least 50 million years. Since Mawsonia was a fresh, brackish water fish with probably a low ability to cross large sea barriers and because most of the continental components of the Woodbine Fm vertebrate assemblage exhibit Laurasian affinities, it is proposed that the Mawsonia ’s occurrence in North America is more likely the result of a vicariant event linked to the break-up of Pangea rather than the result of a dispersal from Gondwana. The link between a wide geographic distribution and the resilience to extinction demonstrated here for Mawsonia is a clue that a similar situation existed for Latimeria , which allowed this genus to live for tens of millions of years.
... Presumably due to their sheer relative abundance, distributional prevalence and ecological dominance, the palaeobiogeography of fossil brachiopods has been studied extensively [e.g., [1][2][3][4][5][6]. In contrast, however, the biogeography of living brachiopods has received only limited attention (Table 1). ...
The global distribution patterns of 14918 geo-referenced occurrences from 394 living brachiopod species were mapped in 5° grid cells, which enabled the visualization and delineation of distinct bioregions and biodiversity hotspots. Further investigation using cluster and network analyses allowed us to propose the first systematically and quantitatively recognized global bioregionalization framework for living brachiopods, consisting of five bioregions and thirteen bioprovinces. No single environmental or ecological variable is accountable for the newly proposed global bioregionalization patterns of living brachiopods. Instead, the combined effects of large-scale ocean gyres, climatic zonation as well as some geohistorical factors (e.g., formation of land bridges and geological recent closure of ancient seaways) are considered as the main drivers at the global scale. At the regional scale, however, the faunal composition, diversity and biogeographical differentiation appear to be mainly controlled by seawater temperature variation, regional ocean currents and coastal upwelling systems.
... It should also be noted that the temporal scale of this study may have influenced the type of genera selected for analysis. Species with broader ecological niches tend to have higher extinction resistance (Rode and Lieberman, 2004;Thuiller et al., 2005;Powell, 2007;Maguire and Stigall, 2009;Heim and Peters, 2011;Stigall, 2014;Saupe et al., 2015). Therefore, the necessary selection of genera with many species occurrences across the Late Ordovician may have biased data selection towards genera dominated by generalist taxa. ...
Quantifying the relative stability of ecological niches of taxa during intervals of environmental change including determining the environmental controls of niche expansion, stability, and contraction is important for understanding of how taxa and communities change through time. In this study, we used ecological niche modeling to quantify trends in niche dynamics and the stability of eastern Laurentian brachiopod genera during the Sandbian through Katian Stages of the Late Ordovician Epoch. Niche dynamics were quantified using ordination methods to assess niche stability, expansion, and unfilling between time slices, and D and I statistics were calculated to assess niche similarity and equivalency between time slices. Brachiopod genera exhibited substantial niche expansion and limited niche stability between their reconstructed Sandbian and early Katian niches. Conversely, comparisons between early Katian and late Katian niches indicated high levels of niche stability, similarity, and equivalency but limited niche expansion or unfilling. No singular abiotic or biotic causal driver is consistent with the observed patterns. Patterns of niche dynamics and stability are best explained by a feedback loop linking tectonics, sea level, and climate with geographic connection and disconnection of depositional basins, speciation, and dispersal processes. During the Sandbian to early Katian interval, intermittent dispersal events between basins alternated with basin isolation; this cycle fostered increased diversification, which manifests as niche expansion at the genus level. During the late Katian, basin connectivity increased facilitating widespread regional dispersal events. The lack of isolation and spread of invasive taxa hindered speciation. This diminished niche expansion, and genera exhibited niche conservation as the primary niche response. These results indicate that generic niche analysis can be a useful proxy for underlying diversity dynamics and emphasize the importance of incorporating dispersal and isolation when considering evolutionary patterns and processes. Investigations of niche response over long intervals should consider both broader ecological and geographic context that incorporates the influence of diversity and dispersal.
... Latitudinal range (maximum observed paleolatitude minus minimum observed paleolatitude) is also used commonly to characterize geographic range sizes (Powell 2005(Powell , 2007Foote and Miller 2013;Finnegan et al. 2016; Balseiro and Halpern 2019; Darroch et al. 2020). ...
... Unlike a convex hull, latitudinal range is a linear metric and may reflect breadth of thermal tolerance (Jackson 1974;Stanley and Powell 2003;Powell 2007;Sunday et al. 2012), with larger latitudinal ranges potentially indicating greater thermal tolerances. Latitudinal range estimates were square-root transformed for normality. ...
... For example, Kolis and Lieberman (2019) found that geographic range sizes for cephalopod species did not correlate with extinction rates. Using a multiple linear regression, Powell (2007) demonstrated that abundance and geographic range size contributed equally to genus duration in midcontinental brachiopods. Although Powell's (2007) results for the importance of abundance are similar to those reported here, our results may differ for geographic range because of differences in statistical methodology, taxonomic level, and/or the use of summary metrics across the entire duration of the genus to characterize correlates of duration, rather than extinction risk. ...
Geographic range size and abundance are important determinants of extinction risk in fossil and extant taxa. However, the relationship between these variables and extinction risk has not been tested extensively during evolutionarily “quiescent” times of low extinction and speciation in the fossil record. Here we examine the influence of geographic range size and abundance on extinction risk during the late Paleozoic (Mississippian–Permian), a time of “sluggish” evolution when global rates of origination and extinction were roughly half those of other Paleozoic intervals. Analyses used spatiotemporal occurrences for 164 brachiopod species from the North American midcontinent. We found abundance to be a better predictor of extinction risk than measures of geographic range size. Moreover, species exhibited reductions in abundance before their extinction but did not display contractions in geographic range size. The weak relationship between geographic range size and extinction in this time and place may reflect the relative preponderance of larger-ranged taxa combined with the physiographic conditions of the region that allowed for easy habitat tracking that dampened both extinction and speciation. These conditions led to a prolonged period (19–25 Myr) during which standard macroevolutionary rules did not apply.
