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Oceanographic controls on the diversity and extinction of planktonic foraminifera

Nature volume 493, pages 398–401 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Understanding the links between long-term biological evolution, the ocean–atmosphere system and plate tectonics is a central goal of Earth science. Although environmental perturbations of many different kinds are known to have affected long-term biological evolution, particularly during major mass extinction events1,2, the relative importance of physical environmental factors versus biological interactions in governing rates of extinction and origination through geological time remains unknown2. Here we use macrostratigraphic data from the Atlantic Ocean basin to show that changes in global species diversity and rates of extinction among planktonic foraminifera have been linked to tectonically and climatically forced changes in ocean circulation and chemistry from the Jurassic period to the present. Transient environmental perturbations, such as those that occurred after the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous period1 approximately 66 million years ago, and the Eocene/Oligocene greenhouse–icehouse transition3,4 approximately 34 million years ago, are superimposed on this general long-term relationship. Rates of species origination, by contrast, are not correlated with corresponding macrostratigraphic quantities, indicating that physiochemical changes in the ocean–atmosphere system affect evolution principally by driving the synchronous extinction of lineages that originated owing to more protracted and complex interactions between biological and environmental factors.

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Figure 1: Atlantic Ocean basin lithosphere ages and locations of 73 sampled drilling sites.
Figure 2: Macrostratigraphy of the Atlantic Ocean basin.
Figure 3: Macrostratigraphy of the Atlantic Ocean basin and global range through diversity of planktonic foraminifera.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Foote and B. Wilkinson for feedback on our analyses and this manuscript, and N. A. Heim for help in drafting the maps herein. This work was partially supported by National Science Foundation Division of Earth Sciences (NSF EAR) EAR 0819931 to S.E.P. and NSF EAR 0628719 subcontract to D.C.K.

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  1. Andrew J. Fraass

    Present address: Present address: Department of Geoscience, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts 01003, USA.,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geoscience, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 53706, Wisconsin, USA

    Shanan E. Peters, Daniel C. Kelly & Andrew J. Fraass

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  1. Shanan E. Peters
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All authors compiled Macrostrat data and contributed to development of the manuscript; D.C.K. and A.J.F. compiled the planktonic foraminifera species range data.

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Correspondence to Shanan E. Peters.

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Peters, S., Kelly, D. & Fraass, A. Oceanographic controls on the diversity and extinction of planktonic foraminifera. Nature 493, 398–401 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11815

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