Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T11:28:55.088Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Extinction selectivity among lower taxa: gradational patterns and rarefaction error in extinction estimates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2016

Michael L. McKinney
Michael L. McKinney*
Affiliation:
Department of Geological Sciences, and Graduate Program in Ecology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-1410
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Documenting past environmental disturbances will provide a very incomplete explanation of extinctions until more data on intrinsic (e.g., phylogenetic) responses to disturbances are collected. Taxonomic selectivity can be used to infer phylogenetic inheritance of extinction-biasing traits. Selectivity patterns among higher taxa, such as between mammals and bivalves, are well documented. Selectivity patterns among lower taxa (genus, species) have great potential for understanding the dynamics underlying higher taxic turnover. Two echinoid data sets, of fossil and living taxa, indicate that species extinctions do not occur randomly within genera. Reverse rarefaction estimates of past species extinction rates assume random species extinction within higher taxa, so these widely cited extinction estimates may be inaccurate. Revised estimates based on a simulated curve imply that past species extinctions rates may be 6%–15% lower than previously cited. Possible causes for the observed selectivity patterns are discussed. These include nonrandom phylogenetic nesting of species with traits often cited as enhancing extinction vulnerability, into certain taxa. Such traits include low abundance, large body size, narrow niche breadth, and many others. Phylogenetic nesting of extinction-biasing traits at many taxonomic levels does not predict that a dichotomy of mass-background selectivity based on a few traits will occur. Instead, it predicts patterns of selectivity at many taxonomic levels, and at many spatio-temporal scales.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , Summer 1995 , pp. 300 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Aronson, R. B. 1994. Scale-independent biological interactions in the marine environment. Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review 32:435–460.Google Scholar
Burlando, B. 1993. The fractal geometry of evolution. Journal of Theoretical Biology 163:161–172.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Erwin, D. 1989. Regional paleoecology of Permian gastropod genera, southwestern United States, and the End-Permian mass extinction. Palaios 4:424–452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaston, K. J. 1994. Rarity. Chapman and Hall, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghiold, J. 1988. Species distributions of irregular echinoids. Biological Oceanography 6:79–162.Google Scholar
Gilinsky, N. L. 1991. The pace of taxonomic evolution. Pp. 157–174in Gilinsky, N. L. and Signor, P. W., eds. Analytical paleobiology. Short Courses in Paleontology, 4. The Paleontological Society, Knoxville, Tenn.Google Scholar
Gilinsky, N. L. 1994. Volatility and the Phanerozoic decline of background extinction intensity. Paleobiology 20:445–459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harland, W., Armstrong, R., Cox, A., Craig, L., Smith, A., and Smith, D. 1989. A geologic time scale 1989. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harrison, S.In press. Do taxa persist as metapopulations through evolutionary time? In McKinney, M., Drake, J., and Hewitt, C., eds. Biodiversity dynamics: turnover of populations, taxa, and communities. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
House, M. R. 1985. Correlation of mid-Paleozoic ammonoid evolutionary events with global sedimentary perturbations. Nature (London) 313:17–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jablonski, D. 1986. Background and mass extinctions: the alternation of macroevolutionary regimes. Science 231:129–133.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jablonski, D. 1987. Heritability at the species level: analysis of geographic ranges of Cretaceous mollusks. Science 238:360–363.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jablonski, D. 1991. Extinctions: a paleontological perspective. Science 253:754–757.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, K. G., Budd, A. F., and Stemann, T. A. 1995. Extinction selectivity and ecology of Neogene Caribbean reef-corals. Paleobiology 21:52–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kier, P. M. 1977. The poor fossil record of the regular echinoid. Paleobiology 3:168–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kier, P. M., and Lawson, M. H. 1978. Index to living and fossil echinoids 1924-1970. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 34, Washington, D.C.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawton, J. H., Nee, S., Letcher, A., and Harvey, P. 1994. Animal distributions: patterns and processes. Pp. 41–58in Edwards, P. J., May, R. M., and Webb, N., eds. Large-scale ecology and conservation biology. Black well, Oxford, England.Google Scholar
Maurer, B. A. 1991. Concluding remarks: birds, body size, and evolution. Acta XX Congressus Internationalis Ornithologicii:835–837.Google Scholar
McKinney, M. L., and Gittleman, J. G.In press. Ontogeny and phylogeny: tinkering with covariation in behavior, life history, and morphology. In McNamara, K. J., ed. Evolution through heterochrony. Wiley, New York.Google Scholar
Primack, R. B. 1993. Essentials of conservation biology. Sinauer, Sunderland, Mass.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1975. Taxonomic diversity estimation using rarefaction. Paleobiology 1:333–342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1979. Size of the Permo-Triassic bottleneck and its evolutionary implications. Science 206:217–218.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Raup, D. M. 1982. Biogeographic extinction: a feasibility test. Pp. 277–282in Silver, L. and Schulz, P., eds. Geological implications of impacts of large asteroids and comets on the earth. GSA Special Paper 190. Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1991a. A kill curve for Phanerozoic marine species. Paleobiology 17:37–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Raup, D. M. 1991b. Extinction: bad genes or bad luck? Norton, New York.Google ScholarPubMed
Raup, D. M. 1991c. The future of analytical paleobiology. Pp. 207–216in Gilinsky, N. and Signor, P. W., eds. Analytical paleobiology. Short Courses in Paleontology, 4. The Paleontological Society, Knoxville, Tenn.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1994. The role of extinction in evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, USA 91:6758–6763.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Raup, D. M., and Boyajian, G. E. 1988. Patterns of generic extinction in the fossil record. Paleobiology 14:109–125.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1990. The taxonomic structure of periodic extinction. Pp. 33–44in Sharption, V. L. and Ward, P. D., eds. Global catastrophes in earth history. GSA Special Paper 247. Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colorado.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1992. Phylogenetic and ecologic patterns in the Phanerozoic history of marine biodiversity. Pp. 77–100in Eldredge, N., ed. Systematics, ecology, and the biodiversity crisis. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1993. Ten years in the library: new data confirm paleontological patterns. Paleobiology 19:43–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, A. B. 1984. Echinoid palaeobiology. Allen & Unwin, London.Google Scholar
Smith, A. B. 1994. Systematics and the fossil record. Blackwell, London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, F. D. M., May, R., Pellew, R., Johnson, T., and Walter, K. 1993. How much do we know about the current extinction rate? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 8:375–378.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sorauf, J. E., and Pedder, A. 1986. Late Devonian rugose corals and the Frasnian-Famennian crisis. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 23:1265–1287.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1990. The general correlation between rate of speciation and rate of extinction. Pp. 103–127in Ross, R. and Allmon, W., eds. Causes of evolution: a paleontological perspective. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M., and Yang, X. 1994. A double mass extinction at the end of the Paleozoic Era. Science 266:1340–1344.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Westrop, S. R. 1989. Macroevolutionary implications of mass extinction—evidence from an Upper Cambrian stage boundary. Paleobiology 15:46–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar