Mayhew, P.M., McGowan, A.J., Benton, T.G. and Bell, M.A. (2012) Biodiversity tracks temperature over time. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 109(38), pp. 15141-15145. (doi: 10.1073/pnas.1200844109)
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Abstract
The geographic distribution of life on Earth supports a general pattern of increase in biodiversity with increasing temperature. However, some previous analyses of the 540-million-year Phanerozoic fossil record found a contrary relationship, with paleodiversity declining when the planet warms. These contradictory findings are hard to reconcile theoretically. We analyze marine invertebrate biodiversity patterns for the Phanerozoic Eon while controlling for sampling effort. This control appears to reverse the temporal association between temperature and biodiversity, such that taxonomic richness increases, not decreases, with temperature. Increasing temperatures also predict extinction and origination rates, alongside other abiotic and biotic predictor variables. These results undermine previous reports of a negative biodiversity-temperature relationship through time, which we attribute to paleontological sampling biases. Our findings suggest a convergence of global scale macroevolutionary and macroecological patterns for the biodiversity-temperature relationship.
| Item Type: | Articles |
|---|---|
| Status: | Published |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: | McGowan, Dr Alistair |
| Authors: | Mayhew, P.M., McGowan, A.J., Benton, T.G., and Bell, M.A. |
| College/School: | College of Science and Engineering > School of Geographical and Earth Sciences |
| Journal Name: | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
| ISSN: | 0027-8424 |
| Published Online: | 04 September 2012 |
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