Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-v4w92 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-23T12:21:29.524Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Survivorship analysis of Cambrian and Ordovician trilobites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2016

Mike Foote
Mike Foote*
Affiliation:
Committee on Evolutionary Biology, The University of Chicago, 1025 East 57th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Cohort analysis is used to investigate survivorship of trilobites originating during the Cambrian and Ordovician. Using a time-homogeneous branching model, it is estimated that trilobite genera and species originating during the Ordovician survived three times longer than Cambrian genera and species. Monte Carlo simulation of survivorship is used to show that (1) Cambrian and Ordovician survivorship are significantly different, (2) Ordovician cohorts conform more closely to the time-homogeneous model than do Cambrian cohorts, and (3) deviations from temporal homogeneity are more often produced by extraordinary extinction than by unusually slow turnover.

When Early Ordovician cohorts are decomposed into genera within families that originated in the Cambrian versus the Ordovician, no evidence that Cambrian and Ordovician survivorship differences are clade-specific can be found. Ordovician genera of Cambrian affinity and of Ordovician affinity become extinct at similar rates.

Some of the ultimate causes of these differences in survivorship include (1) taxonomic inconsistency, (2) greater environmental stability in the Ordovician, and (3) more highly structured ecosystems in the Ordovician that may have led to the weeding out of extinction-prone taxa.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , Summer 1988 , pp. 258 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Literature Cited

Bambach, R. K. and Gilinsky, N. L. 1986. Perspectives on the distribution of origination and extinction during the Phanerozoic. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 18:534.Google Scholar
Bassett, M. G. and Dean, W. T., eds. 1982. The Cambrian-Ordovician Boundary: sections, fossil distributions, and correlations. National Museum of Wales, Geological Series No. 3; Cardiff. 227 pp.Google Scholar
Epstein, B. 1960. Tests for the validity of the assumption that the underlying distribution of life is exponential. Part I. Technometrics 2:83–101.Google Scholar
Fortey, R. A. 1980. Generic longevity in Lower Ordovician trilobites: relation to environment. Paleobiology 6:24–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fortey, R. A. 1983. Cambrian-Ordovician trilobites from the boundary beds in western Newfoundland and their phylogenetic significance. Special Papers in Palaeontology 30:179–211.Google Scholar
Fortey, R. A. and Chatterton, B. D. E. 1988. Classification of the trilobite suborder Asaphina. Palaeontology 31:165–222.Google Scholar
Harland, W. B., Cox, A. V., Llewellyn, P. G., Pickton, C. A. G., Smith, A. G., and Walters, R. 1982. A Geologic Time Scale. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge. 131 pp.Google Scholar
Hoffman, A. and Kitchell, J. A. 1984. Evolution in a pelagic planktic system: a paleobiologic test of models of multispecies evolution. Paleobiology 10:9–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaanusson, V. 1979. Ordovician. Pp.A136–A166. In Robison, R. A. and Teichert, C. (eds.), Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part A, Introduction. The Geological Society of America and the University of Kansas; Boulder, Colorado, and Lawrence, Kansas.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D. 1986. Mass and background extinctions: the alternation of macroevolutionary regimes. Science 231:129–133.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jones, D. S. and Nicol, D. 1986. Origination, survivorship, and extinction of rudist taxa. Journal of Paleontology 60:107–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levinton, J. S. 1974. Trophic group and evolution in bivalve molluscs. Palaeontology 17:579–585.Google Scholar
McNamara, K. J. 1986. The role of heterochrony in the evolution of Cambrian trilobites. Biological Reviews 61:121–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palmer, A. R. 1979. Cambrian. Pp.A119–A135. In Robison, R. A. and Teichert, C. (eds.), Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part A, Introduction. The Geological Society of America and the University of Kansas; Boulder, Colorado, and Lawrence, Kansas.Google Scholar
Palmer, A. R. 1983. The Decade of North American Geology 1983 geologic time scale. Geology 11:503–504.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palmer, A. R. 1984. The biomere problem: evolution of an idea. Journal of Paleontology 58:599–611.Google Scholar
Quinn, J. F. 1983. Mass extinction in the fossil record. Science 219:1239–1240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1978. Cohort analysis of generic survivorship. Paleobiology 4:1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1981. Extinction: bad genes of bad luck? Acta Geologica Hispanica 16:25–33.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1987. Mathematical models of cladogenesis. Paleobiology 11:42–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1987. Mass extinction: a commentary. Palaeontology 30:1–13.Google ScholarPubMed
Raup, D. M., Sepkoski, J. J. Jr., and Stigler, S. M. 1983. Mass extinction in the fossil record (reply to Quinn). Science 219:1240–1241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1979. A kinetic model of Phanerozoic taxonomic diversity II. Early Phanerozoic families and multiple equilibria. Paleobiology 5:222–251.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1981. The uniqueness of the Cambrian fauna. Pp. 203–207. In Taylor, M. E. (ed.), Short Papers for the Second International Symposium on the Cambrian System. United States Geological Survey Open-File Report 81-743.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1982. A compendium of fossil marine families. Milwaukee Public Museum Contributions in Biology and Geology 51. 125 pp.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1986a. Phanerozoic overview of mass extinction. Pp. 277–295. In Raup, D. M. and Jablonski, D. (eds.), Patterns and Processes in the History of Life (Dahlem Konferenzen 1986). Springer-Verlag; Berlin.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1986b. Global bioevents and the question of periodicity. Pp. 47–61. In Walliser, O. (ed.), Global Bio-Events (Lecture Notes in Earth Sciences Vol. 8). Springer-Verlag; Berlin.Google Scholar
Sheehan, P. M. 1982. Brachiopod macroevolution at the Ordovician-Silurian boundary. Third North American Paleontological Convention, Proceedings 2:477–481.Google Scholar
Simpson, G. G. 1953. The Major Features of Evolution. Columbia University Press; New York. 434 pp.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1973. Effects of competition on rates of evolution, with special reference to bivalve mollusks and mammals. Systematic Zoology 22:486–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1979. Macroevolution: pattern and process. W. H. Freeman and Company; San Francisco. 332 pp.Google Scholar
Stubblefield, C. J. 1960. Evolution in trilobites. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 115:145–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valentine, J. W. 1969. Patterns of taxonomic and ecological structure of the shelf benthos during Phanerozoic time. Palaeontology 12:684–709.Google Scholar
Van Valen, L. M. 1973. A new evolutionary law. Evolutionary Theory 1:1–30.Google Scholar
Whittington, H. B. 1954. Status of Invertebrate Paleontology, 1953, VI. Arthropoda: Trilobita. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University 112:193–200.Google Scholar
Whittington, H. B. 1966. Phylogeny and distribution of Ordovician trilobites. Journal of Paleontology 40:696–737.Google Scholar