A New History of Life (57 page)

  
8.
   J. J. Sepkoski, Jr., “Ten Years in the Library: New Data Confirm Paleontological Patterns,”
Paleobiology
19 (1993): 246–57; J. J. Sepkoski, Jr., “A Compendium of Fossil Marine Animal Genera,”
Bulletins of American Paleontology
363: 1–560.

  
9.
   J. Alroy et al., “Effects of Sampling Standardization on Estimates of Phanerozoic Marine Diversification,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
98 (2001): 6261–66.

10.
   J. Sepkoski, “Alpha, Beta, or Gamma; Where Does All the Diversity Go?”
Paleobiology
14 (1988): 221–34.

11.
   J. Alroy et al., “Phanerozoic Diversity Trends,”
Science
321 (2008): 97.

12.
   A. B. Smith, “Large-Scale Heterogeneity of the Fossil Record: Implications for Phanerozoic Biodiversity Studies,”
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London
356, no. 1407 (2001): 351–67; A. B. Smith, “Phanerozoic Marine Diversity: Problems and Prospects,”
Journal of the Geological Society, London
164 (2007): 731–45; A. B. Smith and A. J. McGowan, “Cyclicity in the Fossil Record Mirrors Rock Outcrop Area,”
Biology Letters
1, no. 4 (2005): 443–45; A. B. Smith, “The Shape of the Marine Palaeodiversity Curve Using the Phanerozoic Sedimentary Rock Record of Western Europe,”
Paleontology
50 (2007): 765–74; A. McGowan and A. Smith. “Are Global Phanerozoic Marine Diversity Curves Truly Global? A Study of the Relationship between Regional Rock Records and Global Phanerozoic Marine Diversity,”
Paleobiology
, 34, no. 1 (2008): 80–103.

13.
   M. J. Benton and B. C. Emerson, “How Did Life Become So Diverse? The Dynamics of Diversification According to the Fossil Record and Molecular Phylogenetics,”
Palaeontology
50 (2007): 23–40.

14.
   S. E. Peters, “Geological Constraints on the Macroevolutionary History of Marine Animals,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
102 (2005): 12326–31.

15.
   This is one of our favorite “Emperor Has No Clothes” moments in paleontology. A team from University of Kansas hypothesized that the Ordovician could have been caused by in intense gamma-ray burst from deep space. Such events, in which enormous energy pours out of small but energetic stars such as a pulsar or magnetar at galactic distances, are real enough. But the suggestions that one such gamma-ray burst (GRB) fried the Earth, causing the Ordovician mass extinction, is just fanciful. There is not a shred of evidence connecting a GRB to the Ordovician mass extinction. It could as easily have been caused by Vulcans or Darth Vader on a bad day (but were there any other kinds for poor Vader?). See A. L. Melott and B. C. Thomas, “Late Ordovician Geographic Patterns of Extinction Compared with Simulations of Astrophysical Ionizing Radiation Damage,”
Paleobiology
35 (2009): 311–20. Also see
www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/starsgalaxies/gammaray_extinction.html
.

16.
   R. K. Bambach et al., “Origination, Extinction, and Mass Depletions of Marine Diversity,”
Paleobiology
30, no. 4 (2004): 522–42.

17.
   S. A. Young et al., “A Major Drop in Seawater 87Sr-86Sr during the Middle Ordovician (Darriwilian): Links to Volcanism and Climate?”
Geology
37, 10 (2009): 951–54.

18.
   S. Finnegan et al., “The Magnitude and Duration of Late Ordovician-Early Silurian Glaciation,”
Science
331, no. 6019 (2011): 903–906.

19.
   S. Finnegan et al., “Climate Change and the Selective Signature of the Late Ordovician Mass Extinction,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
109, no. 18 (2012): 6829–34.

  
1.
   For a nice summary of these early tetrapods and their evolutionary positions, try this website:
www.devoniantimes.org/opportunity/tetrapodsAnswer.html
, and S. E. Pierce et al., “Three-Dimensional Limb Joint Mobility in the Early Tetrapod
Ichthyostega
,”
Nature
486 (2012): 524–27, and P. E. Ahlberg et al., “The Axial Skeleton of the Devonian Tetrapod
Ichthyostega
,”
Nature
437, no. 1 (2005): 137–40.

  
2.
   J. A. Clack,
Gaining Ground: The Origin and Early Evolution of Tetrapods
, 2nd ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012).

  
3.
   E. B. Daeschler et al., “A Devonian Tetrapod-Like Fish and the Evolution of the Tetrapod Body Plan,”
Nature
440, no. 7085 (2006): 757–63; J. P. Downs et al., “The Cranial Endoskeleton of
Tiktaalik roseae
,”
Nature
455 (2008): 925–29; and a summary: P. E. Ahlberg and J. A. Clack, “A Firm Step from Water to Land,”
Nature
440 (2006): 747–49.

  
4.
   N. Shubin,
Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008); B. Holmes, “Meet Your Ancestor, the Fish That Crawled,”
New Scientist
, September 9, 2006.

  
5.
   A. K. Behrensmeyer et al., eds.,
Terrestrial Ecosystems Through Time: Evolutionary Paleoecology of Terrestrial Plants and Animals
(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1992); P. Kenrick and P. R. Crane,
The Origin and Early Diversification of Land Plants. A Cladistic Study
(Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997).

  
6.
   S. B. Hedges, “Molecular Evidence for Early Colonization of Land by Fungi and Plants,”
Science
293 (2001): 1129–33.

  
7.
   C. V. Rubenstein et al., “Early Middle Ordovician Evidence for Land Plants in Argentina (Eastern Gondwana),”
New Phytologist
188, no. 2 (2010): 365–69. The press report can be found at
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1319904/Fossils-worlds-oldest-plants-unearthed-Argentina.html
.

  
8.
   J. T. Clarke et al., “Establishing a Time-Scale for Plant Evolution,”
New Phytologist
192, no. 1 (2011): 266–30; M. E. Kotyk et al., “Morphologically Complex Plant Macrofossils from the Late Silurian of Arctic Canada,”
American Journal of Botany
89 (2002): 1004–1013.

  
9.
   Our own work on the insect and vertebrate invasions can be found in P. Ward et al., “Confirmation of Romer’s Gap as a Low Oxygen Interval Constraining the Timing of Initial Arthropod and Vertebrate Terrestrialization,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
10, no. 45 (2006): 16818–22.

  
1.
   Our own work on the insect and vertebrate invasions can be found in P. Ward et al., “Confirmation of Romer’s Gap as a Low Oxygen Interval Constraining the Timing of Initial Arthropod and Vertebrate Terrestrialization,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
10, no. 45 (2006): 16818–22.

  
2.
   R. Dudley, “Atmospheric Oxygen, Giant Paleozoic Insects and the Evolution of Aerial Locomotor Performance,”
The Journal of Experimental Biology
201 (1988): 1043–50; R. Dudley,
The Biomechanics of Insect Flight: Form, Function, Evolution
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000); R. Dudley and P. Chai, “Animal Flight Mechanics in Physically Variable Gas Mixtures,”
The Journal of Experimental Biology
199 (1996): 1881–85; also C. Gans et al., “Late Paleozoic Atmospheres and Biotic Evolution,”
Historical Biology
13 (1991): 199–219l; J. Graham et al., “Implications of the Late Palaeozoic Oxygen Pulse for Physiology and Evolution,”
Nature
375 (1995): 117–20; J. F. Harrison et al., “Atmospheric Oxygen Level and the Evolution of Insect Body Size,”
Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences
277 (2010): 1937–46.

  
3.
   D. Flouday et al., “The Paleozoic Origin of Enzymatic Lignin Decomposition Reconstructed from 31 Fungal Genomes,”
Science
336, no. 6089 (2012): 1715-19.

  
4.
   Ibid.

  
5.
   J. A. Raven, “Plant Responses to High O
₂
Concentrations: Relevance to Previous High O
₂
Episodes,”
Global and Planetary Change
97 (1991): 19–38; and J. A. Raven et al., “The Influence of Natural and Experimental High O
₂
Concentrations on O
₂
-Evolving Phototrophs,”
Biological Reviews
69 (1994): 61–94.

  
6.
   J. S. Clark et al.,
Sediment Records of Biomass Burning and Global Change
(Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1997); M. J. Cope et al., “Fossil Charcoals as Evidence of Past Atmospheric Composition,”
Nature
283 (1980): 647–49; C. M. Belcher et al., “Baseline Intrinsic Flammability of Earth’s Ecosystems Estimated from Paleoatmospheric Oxygen over the Past 350 Million Years,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
107, no. 52 (2010): 22448–53. Our own take on these experiments is that they are flawed by their failing to test using higher ignition temperatures. Even in low oxygen, a lightning strike causes initial ignition temperatures far higher than those used in this study.

  
7.
   D. Beerling,
The Emerald Planet: How Plants Changed Earth’s History
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

  
8.
   Q. Cai et al., “The Genome Sequence of the Ground Tit
Pseudopodoces humilis
Provides Insights into Its Adaptation to High Altitude,”
Genome Biology
14, no. 3 (2013);
www.geo.umass.edu/climate/quelccaya/diuca.html
, and P. Ward,
Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth’s Ancient Atmosphere
(Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 2006), with references therein to high altitude nesting.

  
9.
   P. Ward,
Out of Thin Air
.

10.
   M. Laurin and R. R. Reisz, “A Reevaluation of Early Amniote Phylogeny,”
Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
113, no. 2 (1995): 165–223.

11.
   P. Ward,
Out of Thin Air
.

  
1.
   C. Sidor et al., “Permian Tetrapods from the Sahara Show Climate-Controlled Endemism in Pangaea,”
Nature
434 (2012): 886–89; S. Sahney and M. J. Benton, “Recovery from the Most Profound Mass Extinction of All Time,”
Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B
275 (2008): 759–65.

  
2.
   The invertebrate fauna from Meishan, China, is proving to be the best-studied marine fossil record of this catastrophic event. There is now a large literature on this: S.-Z. Shen et al., “Calibrating the End-Permian Mass Extinction,”
Science
334, no. 6061 (2011): 1367–72; Y. G. Jin et al., “Pattern of Marine Mass Extinction Near the Permian–Triassic Boundary in South China,”
Science
289, no. 5478 (2000): 432–36.

  
3.
   C. R. Marshall, “Confidence Limits in Stratigraphy,” in D. E. G. Briggs and P. R. Crowther, eds.,
Paleobiology II
(Oxford: Blackwell Scientific, 2001), 542–45; see also the newer work by our Adelaide colleagues, C. J. A. Bradshaw et al., “Robust Estimates of Extinction Time in the Geological Record,”
Quaternary Science Reviews
33 (2011): 14–19.

  
4.
   “End-Permian Extinction Happened in 60,000 Years—Much Faster than Earlier Estimates, Study Says,” Phys.org, February 10, 2014. S. D. Burgess et al., “High-Precision Timeline for Earth’s Most Severe Extinction,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
111, no. 9 (2014): 3316–21.

  
5.
   L. Becker et al., “Impact Event at the Permian–Triassic Boundary: Evidence from Extraterrestrial Noble Gases in Fullerenes,”
Science
291 (2001): 1530–33.

  
6.
   L. Becker et al., “Bedout: A Possible End-Permian Impact Crater Offshore of Northwestern Australia,”
Science
304 (2004): 1469–76.

  
7.
   K. Grice et al., “Photic Zone Euxinia During the Permian-Triassic Superanoxic Event,”
Science
307 (2005): 706–09.

  
8.
   C. Cao et al., “Biogeochemical Evidence for Euxinic Oceans and Ecological Disturbance Presaging the End-Permian Mass Extinction Event,”
Earth and Planetary Science Letters
281 (2009): 188–201.

  
9.
   L. R. Kump and M. A. Arthur, “Interpreting Carbon-Isotope Excursions: Carbonates and Organic Matter,”
Chemical Geology
161 (1999): 181–98.

10.
   K. M. Meyer and L. R. Kump, “Oceanic Euxinia in Earth History: Causes and Consequences,”
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences
36 (2008): 251–88.

11.
   T. J. Algeo and E. D. Ingall, “Sedimentary C
_org
:P Ratios, Paleoceanography, Ventilation, and Phanerozoic Atmospheric pO
₂
,”
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
256 (2007): 130–55; C. Winguth and A. M. E. Winguth, “Simulating Permian-Triassic Oceanic Anoxia Distribution: Implications for Species Extinction and Recovery,”
Geology
40 (2012): 127–30; S. Xie et al., “Changes in the Global Carbon Cycle Occurred as Two Episodes during the Permian-Triassic Crisis,”
Geology
35 (2007): 1083–86; S. Xie et al., “Two Episodes of Microbial Change Coupled with Permo-Triassic Faunal Mass Extinction,”
Nature
434 (2005): 494–97; G. Luo et al., “Stepwise and Large-Magnitude Negative Shift in d
¹³
C
_carb
Preceded the Main Marine Mass Extinction of the Permian-Triassic Crisis Interval,”
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
299 (2011): 70–82; G. A. Brennecka et al., “Rapid Expansion of Oceanic Anoxia Immediately before the End-Permian Mass Extinction,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
108 (2011): 17631–34.