Recovery of Vertebrate faunas from the end-Permian mass extinction

Abstract

Many broad-scale statements have been made about the recovery of life following the Permo– Triassic (PT) crisis, but one of the least understood components in the recovery was the terrestrial vertebrates. Following some years of detailed work on the PTB in Russia, we have shown that the diverse and complex latest Permian terrestrial ecosystems in Russia were volatile in terms of generic and familial turnover, but that when these ecosystems were largely destroyed by the PT crisis the volatility disappeared, and recovery from low diversity was a slow process (Fig. 1), with longer survivorship of genera and families and less turnover. Within the 15 Ma post-event window full recovery of the ecosystems had not taken place. This contrasts with conclusions from elsewhere. Smith and Botha (2005) reported a 69% generic extinction rate, based on a collection of 225 specimens, across the PTB in South Africa. Only four genera, Lystrosaurus, Tetracynodon, Moschorhinus and Ictidosuchoides, survived the PTB. But, within 37 m of the boundary, Smith and Botha (2005) reported a total of ten genera, compared to 13 just below the PTB, and interpreted this to mean that recovery was relatively fast, really within a few hundred thousand years of the