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Abundance distributions imply elevated complexity of post-Paleozoic marine ecosystems

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/116985

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Title: Abundance distributions imply elevated complexity of post-Paleozoic marine ecosystems
Related: Science, Vol. 314, No. 5803 (2006), p.1289-1292
DOI: 10.1126/science.1133795
Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science
Date: 2006
FoR/RFCD Code(s): 040300 Geology 060200 Ecology
Author/Creator: Wagner, Peter J
Author/Creator: Kosnik, Matthew A
Author/Creator: Lidgard, Scott
Description: Likelihood analyses of 1176 fossil assemblages of marine organisms from Phanerozoic (i.e., Cambrian to Recent) assemblages indicate a shift in typical relative-abundance distributions after the Paleozoic. Ecological theory associated with these abundance distributions implies that complex ecosystems are far more common among Meso-Cenozoic assemblages than among the Paleozoic assemblages that preceded them. This transition coincides not with any major change in the way fossils are preserved or collected but with a shift from communities dominated by sessile epifaunal suspension feeders to communities with elevated diversities of mobile and infaunal taxa. This suggests that the end-Permian extinction permanently altered prevailing marine ecosystem structure and precipitated high levels of ecological complexity and alpha diversity in the Meso-Cenozoic.
Description: 4 page(s)
Subject Keyword: 040300 Geology
Subject Keyword: 060200 Ecology
Resource Type: journal article
Organisation: Macquarie University. Dept. of Biological Sciences

Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.14/116985
Identifier: ISSN:0036-8075
Identifier: mq-rm-2009011221
Language: eng
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