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Delayed biological recovery from extinctions throughout the fossil record

Author

Listed:
  • James W. Kirchner

    (University of California)

  • Anne Weil

    (Duke University)

Abstract

How quickly does biodiversity rebound after extinctions? Palaeobiologists have examined the temporal, taxonomic and geographic patterns of recovery following individual mass extinctions in detail1,2,3,4,5, but have not analysed recoveries from extinctions throughout the fossil record as a whole. Here, we measure how fast biodiversity rebounds after extinctions in general, rather than after individual mass extinctions, by calculating the cross-correlation between extinction and origination rates across the entire Phanerozoic marine fossil record. Our results show that extinction rates are not significantly correlated with contemporaneous origination rates, but instead are correlated with origination rates roughly 10 million years later. This lagged correlation persists when we remove the ‘Big Five’ major mass extinctions, indicating that recovery times following mass extinctions and background extinctions are similar. Our results suggest that there are intrinsic limits to how quickly global biodiversity can recover after extinction events, regardless of their magnitude. They also imply that today's anthropogenic extinctions will diminish biodiversity for millions of years to come.

Suggested Citation

  • James W. Kirchner & Anne Weil, 2000. "Delayed biological recovery from extinctions throughout the fossil record," Nature, Nature, vol. 404(6774), pages 177-180, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:404:y:2000:i:6774:d:10.1038_35004564
    DOI: 10.1038/35004564
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    Cited by:

    1. Granville Tunnicliffe Wilson & John Haywood & Lynda Petherick, 2022. "Modeling cycles and interdependence in irregularly sampled geophysical time series," Environmetrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(2), March.
    2. Guohui Ding & Jiuhong Kang & Qi Liu & Tieliu Shi & Gang Pei & Yixue Li, 2006. "Insights into the Coupling of Duplication Events and Macroevolution from an Age Profile of Animal Transmembrane Gene Families," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 2(8), pages 1-7, August.
    3. Bruce S Lieberman & Adrian L Melott, 2007. "Considering the Case for Biodiversity Cycles: Re-Examining the Evidence for Periodicity in the Fossil Record," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 2(8), pages 1-9, August.
    4. Jorge E. Horvath, 2014. "Towards a Mathematical Description of Biodiversity Evolution," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 5(2), pages 1-10, September.

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