A 450 million years long latitudinal gradient in age‐dependent extinction

Leigh Van Valen famously stated that under constant conditions extinction probability is independent of species age. To test this 'law of constant extinction', we developed a new method using deep learning to infer age‐dependent extinction and analysed 450 myr of marine life across 21 inve...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology letters 2020-03, Vol.23 (3), p.439-446
Main Authors: Silvestro, Daniele, Castiglione, Silvia, Mondanaro, Alessandro, Serio, Carmela, Melchionna, Marina, Piras, Paolo, Di Febbraro, Mirko, Carotenuto, Francesco, Rook, Lorenzo, Raia, Pasquale, Wiens, John
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age
Animals
Biodiversity
Biological effects
Biological Evolution
Biological Sciences
Biologiska vetenskaper
deep learning
Endangered & extinct species
Equator
Extinction
Extinction, Biological
fossil occurrences
Fossils
Invertebrates
law of constant extinction
Letter
Letters
Machine learning
mass extinction
Mass extinctions
neural networks
Species diversity
Species extinction
Tropical environments
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Summary:Leigh Van Valen famously stated that under constant conditions extinction probability is independent of species age. To test this 'law of constant extinction', we developed a new method using deep learning to infer age‐dependent extinction and analysed 450 myr of marine life across 21 invertebrate clades. We show that extinction rate significantly decreases with age in > 90% of the cases, indicating that most species died out soon after their appearance while those which survived experienced ever decreasing extinction risk. This age‐dependent extinction pattern is stronger towards the Equator and holds true when the potential effects of mass extinctions and taxonomic inflation are accounted for. These results suggest that the effect of biological interactions on age‐dependent extinction rate is more intense towards the tropics. We propose that the latitudinal diversity gradient and selection at the species level account for this exceptional, yet little recognised, macroevolutionary and macroecological pattern. We developed a new method using deep learning to infer age‐dependent extinction and analyzed 450 myr of marine life across 21 invertebrate clades. We found that extinction rate significantly decreases with age in > 90% of the cases. We propose that the latitudinal diversity gradient and selection at the species level account for this exceptional, yet little recognized, macroevolutionary and macroecological pattern.
ISSN:1461-023X
1461-0248
DOI:10.1111/ele.13441