Biotic Transitions in Global Marine Diversity

Long-term transitions in the composition of Earth's marine biota during the Phanerozoic have historically been explained in two different ways. One view is that they were mediated through biotic interactions among organisms played out over geologic time. The other is that mass extinctions trans...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 1998-08, Vol.281 (5380), p.1157-1160
Main Author: Miller, Arnold I.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Animals
Biodiversity
Biological and medical sciences
Biological diversity
Biological Evolution
Biota
Earth (Planet)
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Ecosystem
Evolution
Exact sciences and technology
Fauna
Fossils
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General aspects
Geosciences (General)
Logistics
Marine
Marine animals
Marine Biology - classification
Marine Biology - statistics & numerical data
Marine fauna
Mass
Mass extinction
Mass extinction events
Mass extinction theory
Paleobiology
Paleontology
Paleontology - classification
Paleontology - statistics & numerical data
Paleontology: general
Review
Space life sciences
Species extinction
Taxa
Trajectories
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Summary:Long-term transitions in the composition of Earth's marine biota during the Phanerozoic have historically been explained in two different ways. One view is that they were mediated through biotic interactions among organisms played out over geologic time. The other is that mass extinctions transcended any such interactions and governed diversity over the long term by resetting the relative diversities of higher taxa. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that macroevolutionary processes effecting biotic transitions during background times were not fundamentally different from those operating during mass extinctions. Physical perturbations at many geographic scales combined to produce the long-term trajectory of Phanerozoic diversity.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.281.5380.1157