Past, present, and future mass extinctions

Elewa, Ashraf M. T.; Abdelhady, Ahmed Awad

doi:10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2019.103678

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 207 publications

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“…In the Ladinian Stage of the Middle Triassic, the occurrence of a new mass extinction has been argued recently [ 5 , 52 ]. Although this biotic perturbation still needs to be studied in detail, its catastrophic nature has nonetheless been revealed.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These include all the “Big Five” mass extinctions, and some relatively less impactful events. The magnitude of these events is not discussed herein, as it remains debatable which mass extinctions should be judged as major, and which are instead minor (e.g., see [ 1 , 5 ]). Of course, it cannot be excluded that some biotic crises are still missed by geologists.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Importantly, this knowledge growth is indivisible from the progress in the understanding of marine (paleo)ecosystems and (paleo)environments, both at the global and local scales. The most important contributions that formed the very fundamentals of what can be called “mass extinction science” were made by Bambach [ 1 ], Benton [ 2 , 3 ], Clapham and Renne [ 4 ], Elewa and Abdelhady [ 5 ], Erwin [ 6 ], Hallam [ 7 ], Jablonski [ 8 ], Holland [ 9 ], Melott and Bambach [ 10 ], Racki [ 11 ], Rampino and Caldeira [ 12 ], Raup and Sepkoski [ 13 ], Thomas [ 14 ], Twitchett [ 15 ], and Wignall [ 16 ]. Hundreds of other researchers have also contributed substantially and focused on particular catastrophic events, fossil groups, or extinction factors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Paleozoic–Mesozoic Eustatic Changes and Mass Extinctions: New Insights from Event Interpretation

Ruban

2020

Life

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Recent eustatic reconstructions allow for reconsidering the relationships between the fifteen Paleozoic–Mesozoic mass extinctions (mid-Cambrian, end-Ordovician, Llandovery/Wenlock, Late Devonian, Devonian/Carboniferous, mid-Carboniferous, end-Guadalupian, end-Permian, two mid-Triassic, end-Triassic, Early Jurassic, Jurassic/Cretaceous, Late Cretaceous, and end-Cretaceous extinctions) and global sea-level changes. The relationships between eustatic rises/falls and period-long eustatic trends are examined. Many eustatic events at the mass extinction intervals were not anomalous. Nonetheless, the majority of the considered mass extinctions coincided with either interruptions or changes in the ongoing eustatic trends. It cannot be excluded that such interruptions and changes could have facilitated or even triggered biodiversity losses in the marine realm.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Paleozoic–Mesozoic Eustatic Changes and Mass Extinctions: New Insights from Event Interpretation

Ruban

2020

Life

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“…The relative dearth of megafauna on Earth today dates to their dramatic declines that began in the Pliocene and intensified towards the end of the Pleistocene. Globally, hundreds of the largest terrestrial species went extinct over the past 50,000 years 1 , 13 , 14 . In Africa, however, losses in megafaunal biodiversity are thought to have occurred earlier, i.e., at multiple points since the early Pliocene 15 – 18 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disruption of trait-environment relationships in African megafauna occurred in the middle Pleistocene

et al. 2023

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Mammalian megafauna have been critical to the functioning of Earth’s biosphere for millions of years. However, since the Plio-Pleistocene, their biodiversity has declined concurrently with dramatic environmental change and hominin evolution. While these biodiversity declines are well-documented, their implications for the ecological function of megafaunal communities remain uncertain. Here, we adapt ecometric methods to evaluate whether the functional link between communities of herbivorous, eastern African megafauna and their environments (i.e., functional trait-environment relationships) was disrupted as biodiversity losses occurred over the past 7.4 Ma. Herbivore taxonomic and functional diversity began to decline during the Pliocene as open grassland habitats emerged, persisted, and expanded. In the mid-Pleistocene, grassland expansion intensified, and climates became more variable and arid. It was then that phylogenetic diversity declined, and the trait-environment relationships of herbivore communities shifted significantly. Our results divulge the varying implications of different losses in megafaunal biodiversity. Only the losses that occurred since the mid-Pleistocene were coincident with a disturbance to community ecological function. Prior diversity losses, conversely, occurred as the megafaunal species and trait pool narrowed towards those adapted to grassland environments.

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“…with an even more severe intensity than that of the previous five geological periods [11,12]. Moreover, recent research has shown that the rate of climate warming will accelerate in the future and extreme weather events will occur more and more frequently, which will undoubtedly cause severe challenges to biodiversity conservation [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prediction of Suitable Distribution of a Critically Endangered Plant Glyptostrobus pensilis

Zhang

Yang

et al. 2022

Forests

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Glyptostrobus pensilis is a critically endangered living fossil plant species of the Mesozoic era, with high scientific research and economic value. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of climate change on the potential habitat area of G. pensilis in East Asia. The MaxEnt (maximum entropy) model optimized by the ENMeval data package was used to simulate the potential distribution habitats of G. pensilis since the last interglacial period (LIG, 120–140 ka). The results showed that the optimized MaxEnt model has a high prediction accuracy with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.9843 ± 0.005. The current highly suitable habitats were found in the northeast of Jiangxi, the east of Fujian; the main climatic factors affecting the geographic distribution of G. pensilis are temperature and precipitation, with precipitation as the dominant factor. The minimum temperature of coldest month (Bio6) may be the key factor restricting the northward distribution of G. pensilis; during the LIG, it contracted greatly in the highly suitable habitat area. In the 2070s, the suitable distribution area will move northward and the area of highly suitable habitat will increase. Seasonal changes in temperature and precipitation may be important climatic factors causing the changes in geographic distribution. The results will provide a theoretical basis for the management and resource protection of G. pensilis.

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Past, present, and future mass extinctions

Cited by 17 publications

References 207 publications

Paleozoic–Mesozoic Eustatic Changes and Mass Extinctions: New Insights from Event Interpretation

Paleozoic–Mesozoic Eustatic Changes and Mass Extinctions: New Insights from Event Interpretation

Disruption of trait-environment relationships in African megafauna occurred in the middle Pleistocene

Prediction of Suitable Distribution of a Critically Endangered Plant Glyptostrobus pensilis

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