Mass Extinction Event Had Little Impact on Marine Ecosystems







To measure the event’s impact on the ocean, the team compared marine ecosystems across the cataclysmic event by analyzing fossils from the middle Triassic to the middle Jurassic – a span of 70 million years. The researchers classified the lifestyles of various ocean-dwelling species based on how they fed and moved and where they lived.

Their findings show that while the extinction did not shift global marine ecology, it did produce significant regional and environmental effects and had a major impact on specific ocean ecosystems.

“One of the great marine casualties of the late Triassic were stationary reef-dwelling animals, such as corals,” Dunhill said. “When we examined the fossil record we saw that while the marine ecosystem continued to function as a whole, it took over 20 million years for tropical reef ecosystems to recover from this environmental cataclysm.

“The effect of the late Triassic greenhouse gases on marine ecosystems is not so different from what you see happening to coral reefs suffering from increasing ocean temperatures today.”

Co-author Richard Twitchett added that understanding the extent of reef collapse during previous extinctions could help scientists forecast the future of modern marine ecosystems.

“Tropical ecosystems suffered widespread devastation each time that greenhouse gases rose rapidly in the past, despite differences in the rates of change and species involved,” said Twitchett, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London.



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