Substrate affinity and diversity dynamics of Paleozoic marine animals

Abstract

Short-term fluctuations in the diversification rate of Paleozoic marine animal genera are more strongly correlated with extinction-rate variation than with origination-rate variation. Diversity dynamics are strikingly different in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, when variation in origination is more important than extinction. Data on the lithologic context of taxonomic occurrences in the Paleobiology Database are used to assess the substrate affinities of Paleozoic genera. The greater role of extinction-rate variation in the Paleozoic is found to characterize genera with an affinity for carbonate substrates but not those that prefer terrigenous clastic substrates. It is therefore plausible that the Paleozoic to post-Paleozoic shift in diversity dynamics is underlain in part by the secular decline in the relative areal extent of carbonate environments, and the concomitant decline in the relative diversity of carbonate- versus clastic-loving taxa.