Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T11:34:05.976Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the importance of global diversity trends and the viability of existing paleontological data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Arnold I. Miller
Arnold I. Miller*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Post Office Box 210013, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221-0013. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Regardless of the macroevolutionary issues at stake, most students of biodiversity would agree that there is value in calibrating global biodiversity trends through critical intervals. To cite one obvious example, given the overwhelming interest in mass extinctions, we would certainly like to know the extent to which diversity declined during these events. Just as significantly, if we are to argue that any mass extinction was truly a global phenomenon, we must demonstrate definitively that its biotic effects reached around the world. Clearly, “standard” global compendia (e.g., Sepkoski 1992, 2002) are insufficient for the latter objective, because they contain no geographic or environmental information. At the least, a database that compares biodiversity transitions among different regions or paleoenvironments is required. Such analyses have the added benefit of providing opportunities to evaluate geographic and environmental selectivity in extinctions, an important facet of any attempt to understand what caused them (e.g., Raup and Jablonski 1993; Jablonski and Raup 1995).

Type
Matters of the Records
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , Winter 2003 , pp. 15 - 18
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

Adrain, J. M., Westrop, S. R., Chatterton, B. D. E., and Ramskold, L. 2000. Silurian trilobite alpha diversity and the end-Ordovician mass extinction. Paleobiology 26:625–646.Google Scholar
Alroy, J., et al. 2001. Effects of sampling standardization on estimates of Phanerozoic marine diversification. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98:6261–6266.Google Scholar
Aronson, R. B. 1994. Scale-independent biological interactions in the marine environment. Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review 32:435–460.Google Scholar
Bambach, R. K. 1977. Species richness in marine benthic habitats through the Phanerozoic. Paleobiology 3:152–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bambach, R. K. 1985. Classes and adaptive variety: the ecology of diversification in marine faunas through the Phanerozoic. Pp. 191–253in Valentine, J. W., ed. Phanerozoic diversity patterns: profiles in macroevolution. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.Google Scholar
Budd, A. F., Foster, C. T., Dawson, J. P., and Johnson, K. G. 2001. The Neogene Marine Biota of Tropical America (“NMITA”) database: accounting for biodiversity in paleontology. Journal of Paleontology 75:743–751.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foote, M. 2000. Origination and extinction components of taxonomic diversity: Paleozoic and post-Paleozoic dynamics. Paleobiology 26:578–605.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jablonski, D. 1998. Geographic variation in the molluscan recovery from the end-Cretaceous extinction. Science 279:1327–1330.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D., and Raup, D. M. 1995. Selectivity of end-Cretaceous marine bivalve extinctions. Science 268:389–391.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jackson, J. B. C., and Johnson, K. G. 2001. Measuring past biodiversity. Science 293:2401–2404.Google Scholar
Li, X., and Droser, M. L. 1999. Lower and Middle Ordovician shell beds from the Basin and Range province of the western United States (California, Nevada, and Utah). Palaios 14:215–233.Google Scholar
Miller, A. I. 1997. Comparative diversification dynamics among palaeocontinents during the Ordovician Radiation. Geobios Mémoire Spécial 20:397–406.Google Scholar
Miller, A. I. 1998. Biotic transitions in global marine diversity. Science 281:1157–1160.Google Scholar
Miller, A. I. 2000. Conversations about Phanerozoic global diversity. In Erwin, D. H. and Wing, S. L., eds. Deep time: Paleobiology's perspective. Paleobiology 26(Suppl. to No. 4):53–73.Google Scholar
Miller, A. I., and Foote, M. 1996. Calibrating the Ordovician radiation of marine life: implications for Phanerozoic diversity trends. Paleobiology 22:304–309.Google Scholar
Miller, A. I., and Mao, S. 1998. Scales of diversification and the Ordovician radiation. Pp. 288–310in McKinney, M. L. and Drake, J. A., eds. Biodiversity dynamics: turnover of populations, taxa, and communities. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Patzkowsky, M. E. 1995. Ecological aspects of the Ordovician radiation of articulate brachiopods. Pp. 413–414in Cooper, J. D., Droser, M. L. and Finney, S. C., eds. Ordovician odyssey. Short Papers for the Seventh International Symposium on the Ordovician System. Pacific Section of the Society for Sedimentary Geology (SEPM), Fullerton, Calif.Google Scholar
Patzkowsky, M. E. 1999. A new agenda for evolutionary paleoecology—or would you in the background please step forward. Palaios 14:195–197.Google Scholar
Patzkowsky, M. E., and Holland, S. M. 1999. Biofacies replacement in a sequence stratigraphic framework: Middle and Upper Ordovician of the Nashville Dome, Tennessee, USA. Palaios 14:301–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, S. E., and Foote, M. 2002 (for 2001). Biodiversity in the Phanerozoic: a reinterpretation. Paleobiology 27:583–601.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raup, D. M., and Jablonski, D. 1993. Geography of end-Cretaceous marine bivalve extinctions. Science 260:971–973.Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, M. L., and McCord, R. D. 1991. Incumbent replacement: evidence for long-term evolutionary progress. Paleobiology 17:202–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1981. A factor analytic description of the Phanerozoic marine fossil record. Paleobiology 7:36–53.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1988. Alpha, beta, or gamma: where does all the diversity go? Paleobiology 14:221–234.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1992. A compendium of fossil marine animal families. Milwaukee Public Museum, Milwaukee.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1997. Biodiversity: past, present, and future. Journal of Paleontology 71:533–539.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 2002. A compendium of fossil marine animal genera. Bulletin of American Paleontology No. 363.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr., Bambach, R. K., Raup, D. M., and Valentine, J. W. 1981. Phanerozoic marine diversity and the fossil record. Nature 293:435–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valentine, J. W., Foin, T. C., and Peart, D. 1978. A provincial model of Phanerozoic marine diversity. Paleobiology 4:55–66.Google Scholar
Waisfeld, B. G., Sanchez, T. M., and Carrera, M. G. 1999. Biodiversification patterns in the Early Ordovician of Argentina. Palaios 14:198–214.Google Scholar
Walker, L. J., Wilkinson, B. H., and Ivany, L. C. 2002. Continental drift and Phanerozoic carbonate accumulation in shallow-shelf and deep-marine settings. Journal of Geology 110:75–87.Google Scholar