期刊
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ASTROBIOLOGY
卷 10, 期 2, 页码 123-129出版社
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/S1473550410000455
关键词
evolution; macroevolution; mass extinctions; paleobiology
资金
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) [FE 1060/1-1]
- European Space Agency (ESA)
- European Astrobiology Network Association (EANA)
Episodes of species mass extinction dramatically affected the evolution of life on Earth, but their causes remain a source of debate. Even more controversy surrounds the hypothesis of periodicity in the fossil record, with conflicting views still being published in the scientific literature, often even based on the same state-of-the- art datasets. From an empirical point of view, limitations of the currently available data on extinctions and possible causes remain an important issue. From a theoretical point of view, it is likely that a focus on single extinction causes and strong periodic forcings has strongly contributed to this controversy. Here I show that if there is a periodic extinction signal at all, it is much more likely to result from a combination of a comparatively weak periodic cause and various random factors. Tests of this unified model of mass extinctions on the available data show that the model is formally better than a model with random extinction causes only. However, the contribution of the periodic component is small compared to factors such as impacts or volcanic eruptions.
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