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Death Stars, Ecology, and Mass Extinctions
Author(s) -
Quinn James F.,
Signor Philip W.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.144
H-Index - 294
eISSN - 1939-9170
pISSN - 0012-9658
DOI - 10.2307/1941351
Subject(s) - extinction event , extinction (optical mineralogy) , ecology , paleoecology , permian–triassic extinction event , extraterrestrial life , biosphere , demise , geography , paleontology , astrobiology , geology , biology , biological dispersal , population , demography , sociology , political science , law
The appeal of a simple, extrinsic (sensu Gould 1977) physical mechanism for all or even one mass extinction in undeniable. But it now seems unlikely that extraterrestrial impacts provide the ultimate cause of more than a single mass extinction. At the Cretaceous–Tertiary (K–T) boundary there is ample evidence for unusual astrophysical or geophysical events, but the link between those events and the extinction of terrestrial and marine faunas and floras remains uncertain. One means of understanding the demise of clades during the K–T and other mass extinctions lies in the paleoecology of the survivors compared to causalities, in temporal, geographical, and ecological patterns. Likewise, similarities in patterns provide a means to test mechanisms common among extinction events (Jablonski 1986a). Extinctions are biological events. Evidence for extrinsic influences on the biosphere will certainly aid in comprehending the nature of biohistorical events, such as mass extinctions, and may well be responsible for those events, but the ecology of fossils is the crucial link to understanding these events.