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POST-EXTINCTION RECOVERY

Diversity on the rebound

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 3, pages 873–874 (2019)Cite this article

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The reduction in biodiversity after the end-Cretaceous mass extinction event did not instantaneously create evolutionary opportunities for planktonic protists. Survivors instead re-diversified in pulses that followed morphological innovations.

It is often assumed that mass extinction events result in reduced competition among their survivors, with an ensuing immediate burst of re-diversification as a consequence. However, Lowery & Fraass tested another hypothesis: by their nature, mass extinction events do not leave vast unexploited resources and create infinite opportunities for radiation, but instead result in the collapse of entire ecosystems2. Thus, recovery requires building ecosystems anew, with originations necessary to create opportunity for additional organisms2. Foraminifera are ideal for studying this question because they are numerous and widespread, so the foraminifera fossil record preserved in drill cores does not suffer the same problems of incompleteness that plague the fossil records of larger taxa. The authors found a mixed signal for foraminifera recovery in the wake of the end-Cretaceous extinction: the initial burst of diversification was modest, followed by the addition of species throughout the Palaeocene (66–56 Ma). Their finding suggests that both initial diversification without ecospace expansion and slower radiation driven by creation of new ecospace were at work.

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Fig. 1: Following a loss of morphological and taxonomic diversity at the Cretaceous–Palaeogene (K–Pg) boundary, morphological complexity rebounded before taxonomic diversity.

Images adapted with permission from ref. 11, Smithsonian Institution Press; ref. 12,13,14, Cushman Foundation for Foraminiferal Research/Allen Press; ref. 15, The Micropaleontology Project, Inc.; and ref. 16, Geological Society of America (permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.).

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, Tulsa, OK, USA

    Anne Weil

  2. Department of Environmental System Sciences, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    James W. Kirchner

  3. Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

    James W. Kirchner

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  1. Anne Weil
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  2. James W. Kirchner
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Correspondence to Anne Weil or James W. Kirchner.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Weil, A., Kirchner, J.W. Diversity on the rebound. Nat Ecol Evol 3, 873–874 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0883-5

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