Survival without recovery after mass extinctions.

ABSTRACT: Because many survivors of mass extinctions do not participate in postrecovery diversifications, and therefore fall into a pattern that can be termed "Dead Clade Walking" (DCW), the effects of mass extinctions extend beyond the losses observed during the event itself. Analyses at two taxonomic levels provide a first-order test of the prevalence of DCWs by using simple and very conservative operational criteria. For four of the Big Five mass extinctions of the Phanerozoic, the marine genera that survived the extinction suffered approximately 10-20% attrition in the immediately following geologic stage that was significantly greater than the losses sustained in preextinction stages. The stages immediately following the three Paleozoic mass extinctions also account for 17% of all order-level l

SUBMITTER: Jablonski D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC123034 | biostudies-literature | 2002 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature