Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T21:00:51.633Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Memoir 4: An Analysis of the History of Marine Animal Diversity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2016

Steven M. Stanley*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Post Building, 1680 East-West Road, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822. E-mail: stevenst@hawaii.edu

Abstract

According to when they attained high diversity, major taxa of marine animals have been clustered into three groups, the Cambrian, Paleozoic, and Modern Faunas. Because the Cambrian Fauna was a relatively minor component of the total fauna after mid-Ordovician time, the Phanerozoic history of marine animal diversity is largely a matter of the fates of the Paleozoic and Modern Faunas. The fact that most late Cenozoic genera belong to taxa that have been radiating for tens of millions of years indicates that the post-Paleozoic increase in diversity indicated by fossil data is real, rather than an artifact of improvement of the fossil record toward the present.

Assuming that ecological crowding produced the so-called Paleozoic plateau for family diversity, various workers have used the logistic equation of ecology to model marine animal diversification as damped exponential increase. Several lines of evidence indicate that this procedure is inappropriate. A plot of the diversity of marine animal genera through time provides better resolution than the plot for families and has a more jagged appearance. Generic diversity generally increased rapidly during the Paleozoic, except when set back by pulses of mass extinction. In fact, an analysis of the history of the Paleozoic Fauna during the Paleozoic Era reveals no general correlation between rate of increase for this fauna and total marine animal diversity. Furthermore, realistically scaled logistic simulations do not mimic the empirical pattern. In addition, it is difficult to imagine how some fixed limit for diversity could have persisted throughout the Paleozoic Era, when the ecological structure of the marine ecosystem was constantly changing. More fundamentally, the basic idea that competition can set a limit for marine animal diversity is incompatible with basic tenets of marine ecology: predation, disturbance, and vagaries of recruitment determine local population sizes for most marine species. Sparseness of predators probably played a larger role than weak competition in elevating rates of diversification during the initial (Ordovician) radiation of marine animals and during recoveries from mass extinctions. A plot of diversification against total diversity for these intervals yields a band of points above the one representing background intervals, and yet this band also displays no significant trend (if the two earliest intervals of the initial Ordovician are excluded as times of exceptional evolutionary innovation). Thus, a distinctive structure characterized the marine ecosystem during intervals of evolutionary radiation—one in which rates of diversification were exceptionally high and yet increases in diversity did not depress rates of diversification.

Particular marine taxa exhibit background rates of origination and extinction that rank similarly when compared with those of other taxa. Rates are correlated in this way because certain heritable traits influence probability of speciation and probability of extinction in similar ways. Background rates of origination and extinction were depressed during the late Paleozoic ice age for all major marine invertebrate taxa, but remained correlated. Also, taxa with relatively high background rates of extinction experienced exceptionally heavy losses during biotic crises because background rates of extinction were intensified in a multiplicative manner; decimation of a large group of taxa of this kind in the two Permian mass extinctions established their collective identity as the Paleozoic Fauna.

Characteristic rates of origination and extinction for major taxa persisted from Paleozoic into post-Paleozoic time. Because of the causal linkage between rates of origination and extinction, pulses of extinction tended to drag down overall rates of origination as well as overall rates of extinction by preferentially eliminating higher taxa having relatively high background rates of extinction. This extinction/origination ratchet depressed turnover rates for the residual Paleozoic Fauna during the Mesozoic Era. A decline of this fauna's extinction rate to approximately that of the Modern Fauna accounts for the nearly equal fractional losses experienced by the two faunas in the terminal Cretaceous mass extinction.

Viewed arithmetically, the fossil record indicates slow diversification for the Modern Fauna during Paleozoic time, followed by much more rapid expansion during Mesozoic and Cenozoic time. When viewed more appropriately as depicting geometric—or exponential—increase, however, the empirical pattern exhibits no fundamental secular change: the background rate of increase for the Modern Fauna—the fauna that dominated post-Paleozoic marine diversity—simply persisted, reflecting the intrinsic origination and extinction rates of constituent taxa. Persistence of this overall background rate supports other evidence that the empirical record of diversification for marine animal life since Paleozoic time represents actual exponential increase. This enduring rate makes it unnecessary to invoke environmental change to explain the post-Paleozoic increase of marine diversity.

Because of the resilience of intrinsic rates, an empirically based simulation that entails intervals of exponential increase for the Paleozoic and Modern Faunas, punctuated by mass extinctions, yields a pattern that is remarkably similar to the empirical pattern. It follows that marine animal genera and species will continue to diversify exponentially long into the future, barring disruption of the marine ecosystem by human-induced or natural environmental changes.

Type
Research Article
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.)

References

Literature Cited

Allison, P. A., and Briggs, D. E. G. 1993. Paleolatitudinal sampling bias, Phanerozoic species diversity, and the end-Permian extinction. Geology 21: 6568.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alroy, J. 2004. Are Sepkoski's evolutionary faunas dynamically coherent? Evolutionary Ecology Research 6: 132.Google Scholar
Alroy, J., Marshall, C. R., Bambach, R. K., Bezusko, K., Foote, M., Fürsich, F. T., Hansen, T. A., Holland, S. M., Ivany, L. C., Jablonski, D., Jacobs, D. K., Jones, D. C., Kosnik, M. A., Lidgard, S., Low, S., Miller, A., Novack-Gottshall, P. M., Olszewski, T. D., Patzkowsky, M. E., Raup, D. M., Roy, K., Sepkoski, J. J. Jr., Sommers, M. G., Wagner, P. J., and Webber, A. 2001. Effects of sampling standardization on estimates of Phanerozoic marine diversification. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98: 62616266.Google Scholar
Bambach, R. K. 1977. Species richness in marine benthic habitats throughout the Phanerozoic. Paleobiology 3: 152167.Google Scholar
Bambach, R. K. 1983. Ecospace utilization and guilds in marine communities through the Phanerozoic. Pp. 719746 in Tevesz, M. J. S. and McCall, P. L., eds. Biotic interactions in Recent and fossil benthic communities. Plenum, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bambach, R. K. 1985. Classes and adaptive variety: the ecology of diversification in marine faunas through the Phanerozoic. Pp. 191253c in Valentine, J. W., ed. Phanerozoic diversity patterns. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N. J. Google Scholar
Bambach, R. K. 1993. Seafood through time: changes in biomass, energetics, and productivity in the marine ecosystem. Paleobiology 19: 372397.Google Scholar
Bambach, R. K. 1999. Energetics in the global marine fauna: a connection between terrestrial diversification and change in the marine biosphere. Geobios 32: 131144.Google Scholar
Bambach, R. K., Knoll, A. H., and Wang, S. C. 2004. Origination, extinction, and mass depletions of marine diversity. Paleobiology 30: 522542.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrick, R. E., and Showers, W. J. 1995. Oxygen isotope variability in juvenile dinosaurs (Hypacrosaurus): evidence for thermoregulation. Paleobiology 21: 552560.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrick, R. E., Showers, W. J., and Fischer, A. G. 1996. Comparison of thermoregulation of four ornithischian dinosaurs and a varanid lizard from the Cretaceous Two Medicine Formation: evidence from oxygen isotopes. Palaios 11: 295305.Google Scholar
Bell, S. S., and Coull, B. C. 1978. Field evidence that shrimp predation regulates meiofauna. Oecologia 35: 141148.Google Scholar
Benton, M. J. 1986. More than one event in the Late Triassic extinction. Nature 321: 857859.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benton, M. J. 1987. Progress and competition in macroevolution. Biological Reviews 62: 305338.Google Scholar
Blegvad, H. 1928. Quantitative investigations of bottom invertebrates in the Limfjord 1910–1927 with special reference to the plaice food.Google Scholar
Boss, K. J. 1971. Critical estimate of the number of recent Mollusca. Occasional Papers on Mollusks, Harvard University 3: 81135.Google Scholar
Boss, K. J. 1982. Mollusca. Pp. 9451166 in Parker, S. P., ed. Synopsis and classification of living organisms. McGraw-Hill, New York.Google Scholar
Bottjer, D. J., and Ausich, W. I. 1986. Phanerozoic development of tiering in soft substrata suspension-feeding communities. Paleobiology 12: 400420.Google Scholar
Bush, A. M., and Bambach, R. K. 2004. Did alpha diversity increase during the Phanerozoic: lifting the veils of taphonomic, latitudinal, and environmental biases. Journal of Geology 112: 625642.Google Scholar
Bush, A. M., Markey, M. J., and Marshall, C. R. 2004. Removing bias from diversity curves: the effects of spatially organized biodiversity and sampling standardization. Paleobiology 30: 666686.Google Scholar
Buss, L. W., and Jackson, J. B. C. 1979. Competitive networks: nontransitive competitive relationships in cryptic coral reef environments. American Naturalist 113: 223234.Google Scholar
Buzas, M. A. 1978. Foraminifera as prey for benthic deposit feeders: results of predator exclusion experiments. Journal of Marine Research 36: 617625.Google Scholar
Buzas, M. A., Collins, L. S., and Culver, S. J. 2002. Latitudinal difference in biodiversity caused by higher tropical rate of increase. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 99: 78417843.Google Scholar
Connell, J. H. 1978. Diversity in tropical rain forest and coral reefs. Science 199.Google Scholar
Courtillot, V., and Gaudemer, Y. 1996. Effects of mass extinctions on biodiversity. Nature 381: 146148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crampton, J. S., Foote, M., Beu, A. G., Maxwell, P. A., Cooper, R. A., Matcham, I., Marshall, B. A., and Jones, C. M. 2006. The ark was full! Constant to declining Cenozoic shallow marine biodiversity on an isolated midlatitude continent. Paleobiology 32: 509532.Google Scholar
Davidson, E. H., and Erwin, D. H. 2006. Gene regulatory networks and the evolution of animal body plans. Science 311: 796800.Google Scholar
Dayton, P. K. 1971. Competition, disturbance, and community organization: the provisions and subsequent utilization of space in a rocky intertidal community. Ecological Monographs 41: 351389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Droser, M. L., Bottjer, D. L., and Sheehan, P. M. 1997. Evaluating the ecological architecture of major events in the Phanerozoic history of marine invertebrate life. Geology 25: 167170.2.3.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emig, C. C. 1981. Observations sur l'ecologie de Lingula reevei Davidson (Brachiopoda: Inarticulata). Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 52: 4761.Google Scholar
Erwin, D. H. 2001. Lessons from the past: biotic recovery from mass extinctions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98: 53995403.Google Scholar
Erwin, D. H., Valentine, J. W., and Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1987. A comparative study of diversification events: the early Paleozoic versus the Mesozoic. Evolution 4: 11771186.Google Scholar
Fagerstrom, J. A. 1987. The evolution of reef communities. Wiley, New York.Google Scholar
Fernandez, E. M., Lin, J., and Scarpa, J. 1999. Culture of Mercenaria mercenaria (Linnaeus): effects of density, predator exclusion device, and bag inversion. Journal of Shellfish Research 18: 7783.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. A. 1930. The genetical theory of natural selection. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Foote, M. 2000. Origination and extinction components of taxonomic diversity: Paleozoic and post-Paleozoic dynamics. Paleobiology 26: 578605.2.0.CO;2>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foote, M. 2005. Pulsed origination and extinction in the marine realm. Paleobiology 31: 620.Google Scholar
Gilinsky, N. L. 1994. Volatility and Phanerozoic decline of background extinction intensity. Paleobiology 20: 445458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glaessner, M. F. 1969. Arthropoda 4. Part R of Moore, R. C., ed. Treatise on invertebrate paleontology. Geological Society of America, Boulder, Colo., and University of Kansas, Lawrence.Google Scholar
Gradstein, F., and Ogg, J. 1999. Geological Timescale. Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. Google Scholar
Hallam, A. 1992. Phanerozoic sea-level change. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Hallock, P. 1987. Fluctuations in the trophic resource continuum: a factor in global diversity cycles? Paleoceanography 2: 457471.Google Scholar
Hughes, T. P., Baird, A. H., Dinsdale, E. A., Moltschaniwskyj, N. A., Pratchett, M. S., Tanner, J. E., and Willis, B. L. 1999. Patterns of recruitment and abundance of corals along the Great Barrier Reef. Nature 397: 5963.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isozaki, Y. 1997. Permo-Triassic boundary superanoxia: records from lost deep sea. Science 276: 235238.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jablonski, D. 1986. Background and mass extinctions: the alternation of macroevolutionary regimes. Science 231: 129133.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D., Flessa, W., and Valentine, J. W. 1985. Biogeography and paleobiology. Paleobiology 11: 7590.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D., Roy, K., Valentine, J. W., Price, R. M., and Anderson, P. S. 2003. The impact of the pull of the Recent on the history of marine diversity. Science 300: 11331135.Google Scholar
Jablonski, D., Roy, K., and Valentine, J. W. 2006. Out of the Tropics: evolutionary dynamics of the latitudinal diversity gradient. Science 314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, J. B. C., and Johnson, K. G. 2001. Measuring past biodiversity. Science 293: 24012403.Google Scholar
Kammer, T. W., and Ausich, W. 2006. The “age of crinoids”: a Mississippian spike with widespread carbonate ramps. Palaios 21: 238248.Google Scholar
Kenyon, J. C. 1997. Models of reticulate evolution in the coral genus Acropora based on chromosome numbers: parallels with plants. Evolution 51: 756767.Google Scholar
Kier, P. M. 1977. The poor fossil record of the regular echinoid. Paleobiology 3: 168174.Google Scholar
Kitchell, J. A., and Carr, T. R. 1985. Nonequilibrium model of diversification: faunal turnover dynamics. Pp. 277309 in Valentine, J. W., ed. Phanerozoic diversity patterns: profiles in macroevolution. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. Google Scholar
Koch, C. F., and Sohl, N. F. 1983. Preservational effects in paleoecological studies: Cretaceous mollusc examples. Paleobiology 9: 2634.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, A., and Benton, M. E. 2003. Taxonomic level as a determinant of the shape of the Phanerozoic marine biodiversity curve. American Naturalist 162: 265276.Google Scholar
Lindberg, D. R. 1992. Evolution, distribution and systematics of the Haliotidae. Pp. 318 in Shepherd, S. A., Tegner, M. J., and Guzman del Proo, S. A., eds. Abalone of the world: biology, fisheries, and culture. Fishing New Books, Oxford.Google Scholar
Long, J. A. 1995. The rise of fishes: 500 million years of evolution. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.Google Scholar
Lotka, A. J. 1925. Elements of physical biology. Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore.Google Scholar
Marshall, C. R. 2006. Explaining the Cambrian “explosion” of animals. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 34: 355384.Google Scholar
May, R. M. 1981. Models for two interacting populations. Pp. 78104 in May, R. M., ed. Theoretical ecology: principles and applications. Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
McGhee, G. R. 1988. The Late Devonian extinction event: evidence for abrupt ecosystem collapse. Paleobiology 14: 250257.Google Scholar
Meyer, C. P. 2003. Molecular systematics of cowries (Gastropoda: Cypraeidae) and diversification patterns in the tropics. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 79: 401459.Google Scholar
Meyer, D. L., and Macurda, D. B. 1977. The adaptive radiation of the comatulid crinoids. Paleobiology 3: 5999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, A. I., and Foote, M. 1996. Calibrating the Ordovician radiation of marine life: implications for Phanerozoic diversity trends. Paleobiology 22: 304309.Google Scholar
Miller, A. I., and Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1988. Modeling bivalve diversification: the effects of interaction on a macroevolutionary system. Paleobiology 14: 364369.Google Scholar
Moy-Thomas, J. A., and Miles, M. S. 1971. Paleozoic fishes. Chapman and Hall, London.Google Scholar
Oreskes, N., Shrader-Frechette, K., and Belilz, K. 1994. Verification, validation, and confirmation of numerical models in the earth sciences. Science 263: 64126416.Google Scholar
Paine, R. T. 1966. Food web complexity and species diversity. American Naturalist 100: 6575.Google Scholar
Patzkowsky, M. E. 1995. A hierarchical branching model of evolutionary radiations. Paleobiology 21: 440460.Google Scholar
Patzkowsky, M. E., and Holland, S. M. 2003. Lack of community saturation at the beginning of the Paleozoic plateau: the dominance of regional over local processes. Paleobiology 29: 545560.Google Scholar
Peters, S. E. 2005. Geologic constraints on the macroevolutionary history of animals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 102: 1232612331.Google Scholar
Peters, S. E., and Foote, M. 2001. Biodiversity in the Phanerozoic: a reinterpretation. Paleobiology 27: 583601.Google Scholar
Peterson, C. H. 1979. Predation, competitive exclusion, and diversity in the soft-sediment benthic communities of estuaries and lagoons. Pp. 233264 in Livingston, R. J., ed. Ecological processes in coastal and marine systems. Plenum, New York.Google Scholar
Poty, E. 1999. Famennian and Tournaisian recoveries of shallow water Rugosa following the late Frasnian and Strunian major crises, Southern Belgium and surrounding areas, Hunan (South China) and the Omolon region (NE Siberia). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 154: 1126.Google Scholar
Powell, M. G. 2005. Climatic basis for sluggish macroevolution during the late Paleozoic ice age. Geology 33: 381384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raffi, S., Stanley, S. M., and Marasti, R. 1985. Biogeographic patterns and Plio-Pleistocene extinction of Bivalvia in the Mediterranean and southern North sea. Paleobiology 11: 368388.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1972. Taxonomic diversity during the Phanerozoic. Science 177: 10651071.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1976. Species diversity in the Phanerozoic: an interpretation. Paleobiology 2: 289297.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1979a. Models and methodologies in evolutionary theory. Bulletin of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History 13: 8591.Google Scholar
Raup, D. M. 1979b. Size of the Permo-Triassic bottleneck and its evolutionary implications. Science 206: 217218.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Raup, D. M., and Boyajian, G. E. 1988. Patterns of extinction in the fossil record. Paleobiology 14: 109125.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Raup, D. M., and Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1982. Mass extinctions in the marine fossil record. Science 215: 15011503.Google Scholar
Rhode, R. A., and Muller, R. A. 2005. Cycles in fossil diversity. Nature 434: 208210.Google Scholar
Richardson, J. R. 1997. Ecology of articulated brachiopods. Pp. 441462 in Williams, A. et al. Brachiopoda (revised). Part H, Vol. 1 of Kaesler, R. L., ed. Treatise on invertebrate paleontology. Geological Society of America and University of Kansas, Lawrence.Google Scholar
Ross, C. 1972. Paleobiological analysis of fusulinacean (Foraminiferida) shell morphology. Journal of Paleontology 46: 719728.Google Scholar
Rothman, D. H. 2001. Global biodiversity and the ancient carbon cycle. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98: 43054310.Google Scholar
Rowell, A. J. 1960. Some early stages in the development of Crania anomala (Miller). Annals of the Magazine of Natural History 13: 3552.Google Scholar
Rudwick, M. J. S. 1970. Living and fossil brachiopods. Hutchinson University Library, London.Google Scholar
Sale, P. F. 1977. Maintenance of high diversity in coral-reef fish communities. American Naturalist 111: 337359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scrutton, C. T. 1998. The Paleozoic corals. II. Structure, variation, and palaeoecology. Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society 52: 157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1978. A kinetic model of Phanerozoic taxonomic diversity. I. Analysis of marine orders. Paleobiology 4: 223251.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1979. A kinetic model of Phanerozoic taxonomic diversity. II. Early Phanerozoic families and multiple equilibria. Paleobiology 5: 222251.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1981. A factor analytic description of the Phanerozoic marine fossil record. Paleobiology 7: 3653.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1983. Diversification, faunal change, and community replacement during Ordovician radiations. Pp. 673717 in Tevesz, M. J. S. and McCall, P. L., eds. Biotic interactions in Recent and fossil benthic communities. Plenum, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1984. A kinetic model of Phanerozoic taxonomic diversity. III. Post-Paleozoic families and mass extinctions. Paleobiology 10: 246267.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1994. Extinction and the fossil record. Geotimes (March): 1517.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1996. Competition in macroevolution: the double wedge revisited. Pp. 211255 in Jablonski, D., Erwin, D. H., and Lipps, J. H., eds. Evolutionary paleobiology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1997. Biodiversity: past, present, and future. Journal of Paleontology 71: 533539.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 1999. Rates of speciation and the fossil record. Pp. 260283 in Magurran, A. E. and May, R. M., eds. Evolution of biological diversity. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr. 2002. A compendium of fossil marine animal genera. Bulletins of American Paleontology 363.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr., Bambach, R. K., Raup, D. M., and Valentine, J. W. 1981. Phanerozoic marine diversity and the fossil record. Nature 293: 435437.Google Scholar
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr., McKinney, F. K., and Lidgard, S. 2000. Competitive displacement among post-Paleozoic cyclostome and cheilostome bryozoans. Paleobiology 26: 718.Google Scholar
Sheehan, P. M., and Coorough, P. J. 1990. Brachiopod zoogeography across the Ordovician-Silurian extinction event. In McKerrow, W. S. and Scotese, C. R., eds. Palaeozoic palaeogeography and biogeography. Geological Society of London Memoir 12: 181187.Google Scholar
Signor, P. W. 1982. Species richness in the Phanerozoic: compensating for sampling bias. Geology 10: 625628.Google Scholar
Signor, P. W. 1990. Patterns of diversification. Pp. 130135 in Briggs, D. E. and Crowther, P. R., eds. Palaeobiology: a synthesis. Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Signor, P. W., and Brett, C. E. 1984. The mid-Paleozoic precursor to the Mesozoic marine revolution. Paleobiology 10: 229245.Google Scholar
Signor, P. W., and Lipps, J. H. 1982. Sampling bias, gradual extinction patterns, and catastrophes in the fossil record. Geological Society of America Special Paper 190: 291296.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1968. Post-Paleozoic adaptive radiation of infaunal bivalve mollusks—a consequence of mantle fusion and siphon formation. Journal of Paleontology 42: 214229.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1974. What has happened to the articulate brachiopods? Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 6: 966967.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1975. A theory of evolution above the species level. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 72: 646650.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1977. Trends, rates, and patterns of evolution in the Bivalvia. Pp. 209250 in Hallam, A., ed. Patterns of evolution, as illustrated by the fossil record. Elsevier, Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1979. Macroevolution: pattern and process. W. H. Freeman, New York.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1982a. Gastropod torsion: predation and the opercular imperative. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie 95: 95107.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1982b. Species selection involving alternative character states: an approach to macroevolutionary analysis. North American Paleontological Convention Proceedings, Montreal 2: 505510.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1984. Temperature and biotic crises in the marine realm. Geology 12: 205208.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1986. Anatomy of a regional mass extinction: Plio-Pleistocene decimation of the Western Atlantic bivalve fauna. Palaios 1: 1736.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 1990. The general correlation between rate of speciation and rate of extinction: fortuitous causal linkages. Pp. 103172 in Ross, R. M. and Allmon, W. D., eds. Causes of evolution. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. 2008. Predation defeats competition in the marine realm. Paleobiology 34 (in press).Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M., and Hardie, L. A. 1998. Secular oscillations in the carbonate mineralogy of reef-building and sediment-producing organisms driven by tectonically forced shifts in seawater chemistry. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 144: 37.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M., and Powell, M. G. 2003. Depressed rates of origination and extinction during the late Paleozoic ice age: a new state for the global marine ecosystem. Geology 31: 877880.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M., and Yang, X. 1994. A double mass extinction event at the end of the Paleozoic Era. Science 266: 13401344.Google Scholar
Valentine, J. W. 1969. Patterns of taxonomic and ecologic structure of the shelf benthos during Phanerozoic time. Paleontology 12: 684708.Google Scholar
Valentine, J. W. 1971. Plate tectonics and shallow marine diversity and endemism, an actualistic model. Systemic Zoology 20: 253264.Google Scholar
Valentine, J. W., Foin, T. C., and Peart, D. 1978. A provincial model of Phanerozoic marine diversity. Paleobiology 4: 5566.Google Scholar
Van Valen, L. M. 1985. A theory of evolution and extinction. Evolutionary Theory 7: 133142.Google Scholar
Van Valen, L. M. 1987. Comment and reply on “Phanerozoic trends in background extinction: consequence of an aging fauna.” Geology 14: 875876.Google Scholar
Vermeij, G. J. 1977. The Mesozoic marine revolution: evidence from snails, predators, and grazers. Paleobiology 3: 245258.Google Scholar
Vermeij, G. J. 1995. Ergonomics, volcanoes, and Phanerozoic revolutions. Paleobiology 21: 125152.Google Scholar
Veron, J. E. N. 2000. Corals around the world. Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville.Google Scholar
Vishnevskaya, V. 1997. Development of Palaeozoic-Mesozoic Radiolaria in the Northwestern Pacific Rim. Marine Micropaleontology 30: 7995.Google Scholar
Volterra, V. 1926. Variations and fluctuations of the number of individuals of animal species living together. Pp. 409448 in Chapman, R. N., ed. Animal ecology. McGraw-Hill, New York.Google Scholar
Wallace, C. C., and Rosen, B. R. 2006. Diverse staghorn corals (Acropora) in high-latitude Eocene assemblages: implications for the evolution of modern diversity patterns of reef corals. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 273: 975982.Google ScholarPubMed
Ward, P. D., and Signor, P. W. 1983. Evolutionary tempo in Jurassic and Cretaceous ammonites. Paleobiology 9: 183198.Google Scholar
Wiedmann, J. 1973. Evolution or revolution of ammonoids at Mesozoic system boundaries. Biological Reviews 48: 159194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, D. K., Cherns, L., and Hodges, P. 2003. Missing molluscs: field testing taphonomic loss in the Mesozoic through early large-scale aragonite dissolution. Geology 31: 211214.Google Scholar
Young, D. K., Buzas, M. A., and Young, M. W. 1976. A field experimental study of predation. Journal of Marine Research 34: 577592.Google Scholar
Yugan, J., Zhang, J., and Qinghua, S. 1994. Two phases of the end-Permian mass extinction. Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists Memoir 17: 813822.Google Scholar