Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T02:36:05.424Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Abundance and extinction in Ordovician–Silurian brachiopods, Cincinnati Arch, Ohio and Kentucky

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Andrew Zaffos  and
Steven M. Holland
Andrew Zaffos
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-2501. E-mail: zaffosaa@mail.uc.edu
Steven M. Holland
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-2501. E-mail: zaffosaa@mail.uc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A basic hypothesis in extinction theory predicts that more abundant taxa have an evolutionary advantage over less abundant taxa, which should manifest as increased survivorship during major extinction events and longer fossil-record durations. Despite this, various paleontologic studies have found conflicting patterns, indicating a more complex relationship between abundance and extinction in the geologic past. This study tests the relationship between abundance and extinction among brachiopod genera within seven third-order depositional sequences spanning the Late Ordovician to Early Silurian (Katian–Aeronian) of the Cincinnati Arch.

Contrary to predictions, abundance is not positively correlated with duration in this study. Abundance and duration range from strongly negatively correlated to uncorrelated depending on the spatial scale of analysis and the geologic intervals included, but correlations never indicate that abundance is an evolutionary advantage. In contrast, abundance was an advantageous trait prior to the Ordovician/Silurian extinction, and brachiopods with higher abundances were more likely to survive the event than less abundant brachiopods. While this result is in keeping with common models of extinction, it has not been observed previously at a mass extinction boundary. This may be further evidence that the Ordovician/Silurian extinction was not accompanied by a shift in the macroevolutionary selectivity regime.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , Spring 2012 , pp. 278 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Literature Cited

Baarli, B. G., and Harper, D. A. T. 1986. Relict Ordovician brachiopod faunas in the Lower Silurian of Asker, Oslo Region, Norway. Norsk Geologisk Tidsskrift 66:87–98.Google Scholar
Berry, W. B. N., and Boucot, A. J. 1973. Glacio-eustatic control of Late Ordovician–Early Silurian platform sedimentation and faunal changes. Geological Society of America Bulletin 84:275–284.Google Scholar
Bottjer, D. J., Droser, M. L., Sheehan, P. M., and McGhee, G. R. 2001. The ecological architecture of major events in the Phanerozoic history of marine invertebrate life. Pp. 35–61inAllmon, W. D.and Bottjer, D. J., eds. Evolutionary paleoecology. Columbia University Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brenchley, P. J., Marshall, J. D., and Underwood, C. J. 2001. Do all mass extinctions represent an ecological crisis? Evidence from the Late Ordovician. Geological Journal 36:329–340.Google Scholar
Brett, C. E., Goodman, W. M., and LoDuca, S. T. 1990. Sequences, cycles, and basin dynamics in the Silurian of the Appalachian Foreland Basin. Sedimentary Geology 69:191–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clapham, M. E. 2009. Selectivity of the end-Permian mass extinction. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 41:359.Google Scholar
Cocks, L. R., and Rong, J. 2008. Earliest Silurian faunal survival and recovery after the end Ordovician glaciations: evidence from the brachiopods. Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 98:291–301.Google Scholar
Droser, M. L., Bottjer, D. J., and Sheehan, P. M. 1997. Evaluating the ecological architecture of major events in the Phanerozoic history of marine invertebrate life. Geology 25:167–170.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Droser, M. L., Bottjer, D. J., Sheehan, P. M., and McGhee, G. R. 2000. Decoupling of taxonomic and ecological severity of Phanerozoic marine mass extinctions. Geology 28:675–678.Google Scholar
Foote, M., Crampton, J. S., Beau, A. G., Marshall, B. A., Cooper, R. A., Maxwell, P. A., and Matcham, I. 2007. Rise and fall of species occupancy in Cenozoic fossil mollusks. Science 318:1131–1134.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Foote, M., Crampton, J. S., Beau, A. G., and Cooper, R. A. 2008. On the bidirectional relationship between geographic range and taxonomic duration. Paleobiology 34:421–433.Google Scholar
Gaston, K. J., Blackburn, T. M., and Lawton, J. H. 1997. Interspecific abundance-range size relationships: an appraisal of mechanisms. Journal of Animal Ecology 66:579–601.Google Scholar
Gaston, K. J., Blackburn, T. M., Greenwoods, J. J. D., Gregory, R. D., Quinn, R. M., and Lawton, J. H. 2000. Abundance-occupancy relationships. Journal of Applied Ecology 37:39–59.Google Scholar
Harnik, P. G. 2007. Multiple factors in extinction risk: testing models of extinction selectivity in Eocene bivalves using path analysis. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 39:369.Google Scholar
Harnik, P. G., Simpson, C., and Payne, J. L. 2010. Antagonistic extinction and origination among the seven forms of rarity. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 42:138.Google Scholar
Harper, D. A. T., and Rong, J. 1995. Patterns of change in the brachiopod faunas through the Ordovician-Silurian interface. Modern Geology 20:83–100.Google Scholar
Harper, D. A. T., and Rong, J. 2001. Paleozoic brachiopod extinctions, survival and recovery patterns within the rhynchonelliformeans. Geological Journal 36:317–328.Google Scholar
Holland, S. M. 1993. Sequence stratigraphy of a carbonate-clastic ramp—the Cincinnatian Series (Upper Ordovician) in its type area. Geological Society of America Bulletin 105:306–322.Google Scholar
Holland, S. M., and Patzkowsky, M. E. 1996. Recognizing artifactually generated coordinated stasis: implications of numerical models and strategies for field tests. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 127:147–156.Google Scholar
Holland, S. M., and Patzkowsky, M. E. 1999. Models for simulating the fossil record. Geology 27:491–494.Google Scholar
Holland, S. M., and Patzkowsky, M. E. 2007. Gradient ecology of a biotic invasion: biofacies of the type Cincinnatian series (Upper Ordovician), Cincinnati, Ohio region, USA. Palaios 22:392–407.Google Scholar
Holland, S. M., and Zaffos, A. 2011. Niche conservatism along an onshore-offshore gradient. Paleobiology 37:270–286.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D. 1986. Background and mass extinctions: the alternation of macroevolutionary regimes. Science 231:129–133.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D. 1994. Extinctions in the fossil record. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 344:11–17.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D. 2004. The evolutionary role of mass extinctions: disaster, recovery, and something in-between. Pp. 152–177inTaylor, P. D., ed. Extinctions in the history of life. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D. 2005. Mass extinctions and macroevolution. Paleobiology 31:192–210.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D., and Raup, D. M. 1995. Selectivity of end-Cretaceous marine bivalve extinctions. Science 268:389–391.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. H. 1995. Statistical sirens: the allure of nonparametrics. Ecology 76:1998–2000.Google Scholar
Johnson, D. H. 1999. The insignificance of statistical significance testing. Journal of Wildlife Management 63:763–772.Google Scholar
Kidwell, S. M. 2001. Preservation of species abundance in marine death assemblages. Science 294:1091–1094.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kidwell, S. M., and Flessa, K. W. 1996. The quality of the fossil record: populations, species, and communities. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 24:433–464.Google Scholar
Kunin, W. E., and Gaston, K. J. 1997. The biology of rarity: causes and consequences of rare-common differences. Chapman and Hall, New York.Google Scholar
Leighton, L. R., and Schneider, C. L. 2008. Taxon characteristics that promote survivorship through the Permian-Triassic interval: transition from the Paleozoic to the Mesozoic brachiopod fauna. Paleobiology 34:65–79.Google Scholar
Liow, L. H., and Stenseth, N. C. 2007. The rise and fall of species: implications for macroevolutionary and macroecological studies. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 274:2745–2752.Google Scholar
Lockwood, R. 2003. Abundance not linked to survival across the end-Cretaceous mass extinction: patterns in North American bivalves. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100:2478–2482.Google Scholar
Lockwood, R., and Barbour Wood, S. 2007. Exploring the link between rarity and molluscan extinction in the Cenozoic record of the Coastal Plain. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 39:369.Google Scholar
McClure, M., and Bohonak, A. J. 1995. Non-selectivity in extinction of bivalves in the late Cretaceous of the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 8:779–794.Google Scholar
McDowell, R. C. 1983. Stratigraphy of the Silurian outcrop belt on the east side of the Cincinnati Arch in Kentucky, with revisions in nomenclature. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1151-F:1–27.Google Scholar
McKinney, M. L. 1997. Extinction vulnerability and selectivity: combining ecological and paleontological views. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 28:495–516.Google Scholar
McLaughlin, P. I., Cramer, B. D., Brett, C. E., and Kleffner, M. A. 2008. Silurian high-resolution stratigraphy on the Cincinnati Arch: progress on recalibrating the layer-cake. Geological Society of America Field Guide 12:119–180.Google Scholar
Mogie, M. 2004. In support of null hypothesis significance testing. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 271:S82–S84.Google Scholar
O'Grady, J. J., Reed, D. H., Brook, B. W., and Frankham, R. 2004. What are the best correlates of predicted extinction risk? Biological Conservation 118:513–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olszewski, T. D., and Kidwell, S. M. 2007. The preservational fidelity of evenness in molluscan death assemblages. Paleobiology 33:1–23.Google Scholar
Payne, J. L., and Finnegan, S. 2007. The effect of geographic range on extinction risk during background and mass extinction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104:10506–10511.Google Scholar
Payne, J. L., Truebe, S., Nützel, A., and Chang, E. T. 2011. Local and global abundance associated with extinction risk in late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic gastropods. Paleobiology 37:616–632.Google Scholar
Peters, S. E. 2006. Genus extinction, origination, and the durations of sedimentary hiatuses. Paleobiology 32:387–407.Google Scholar
Peterson, W. L. 1981. Lithostratigraphy of the Silurian rocks exposed on the west side of the Cincinnati Arch in Kentucky. U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1151-C:1–29.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1992. Extinction: bad genes or bad luck? W.W. Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Rong, J. Y., and Harper, D. A. T. 1999. Brachiopod survival and recovery from the latest Ordovician mass extinction in South China. Geological Journal 34:321–348.Google Scholar
Rong, J. Y., and Zhan, R. 2006. Surviving the Ordovician/Silurian extinctions: evidence from the earliest Silurian brachiopods of northeastern Jiangxi and western Zhejiang provinces, East China. Lethaia 39:39–48.Google Scholar
Rong, J., Boucot, A. J., Harper, D. A. T., Zhan, R., and Neuman, R. B. 2006. Global analyses of brachiopod fauna through the Ordovician and Silurian transition: reducing the role of the Lazarus effect. Canadian Journal of Earth Science 43:23–39.Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, M. L., and Clark, C. W. 1994. Island extinction rates from regular census. Conservation Biology 8:491–494.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr., 2002. A compendium of fossil marine animal genera. Bulletins of American Paleontology 363:1–560.Google Scholar
Sheehan, P. M. 1996. A new look at ecologic evolutionary units (EEUs). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 127:21–32.Google Scholar
Sheehan, P. M. 2001. The late Ordovician mass extinction. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 29:331–364.Google Scholar
Sheehan, P. M., and Hansen, T. A. 1986. Detritus feeding as a buffer to extinction at the end of the Cretaceous. Geology 14:868–870.Google Scholar
Signor, P. W. III, and Lipps, J. H. 1982. Sampling bias, gradual extinction patterns, and catastrophes in the fossil record. InSilver, L. T.and Schultz, P. H., eds. Geological implications of impacts of large asteroids and comets on the earth. Geological Society of America Special Paper 190:291–296.Google Scholar
Simpson, C., and Harnik, P. G. 2009. Assessing the role of abundance in marine bivalve extinction over the post-Paleozoic. Paleobiology 35:631–647.Google Scholar
Tracy, C. R., and George, T. L. 1992. On the determinants of extinction. American Society of Naturalists 139:102–122.Google Scholar
Whittaker, R. H. 1960. Vegetation of the Siskiyou Mountains, Oregon and California. Ecological Monographs 30:279–338.Google Scholar
Wright, S. 1931. Evolution in Mendelian populations. Genetics 16:97–159.Google Scholar