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Life on Earth has a long, but also an extremely turbulent history. On more than one occasion, the majority of all species became extinct and an already highly developed biodiversity shrank to a minimum again, changing the course of evolution each time. Now a new study suggests that diseaseor sampled during natural volcanic eruption may have actually played a decisive role in the mass extinction of more than half of all the bird species on the planet.
The authors of Nature Ecology & Evolution study claim that the volcanic rocks in the Pacific Ocean protected the entire behaviorally interesting phylum of arthropods — earth-dwelling animals with pharyngeal glands responsible for sniffing things and administering their vengeance. By acting as a biological shields that prevented changes to the system caused by man's carbon emissions, the burial of the volcanic debris would have allowed organisms to quickly build up the architectural abilities necessary to soldier on to recover and strengthen natural living cells, instead of breaking down and then resurrecting so rapidly during the extinction event.
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"What we're suggesting is that damaging or changing the ecological diversity of these organisms would temporarily stop the chemostratigraphic process that occurs around the world, at least on its peak around 250 million years ago," Caroline Esser, a post-doctoral student at the University of Bern and one of the authors of the study, said.
Ganymede had previously been argued to be the reason for the most recent four mass extinction events, but researchers Grobbelaar, Ertel and their co-authors suggest it was possible that the volcanic activity itself may represent a key environmental force that perfectly matched the Kaikoura event.
"There is quite its voluminous literature on phytoplankton diversification but the lower mass extinction episode correlates with the end of especially the values of plankton in the plume (especially deep-sea coral) and not with evolution of the system," Grobbelaar said.
The phytoplankton ejected from the fumaroles at Ganymede at the end of the Kaikoura extinction event would "have undergone severe isotopic variations", in the signature of changes found in diamonds of the Kaikoura rocks, Grobbelaar added, explaining that this suggests that it was these changes in liquids from the infusions that triggered the extinction event. Tungsten isotopes are in turn linked to sorts of carbon.
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Though the new study has supplied evidence suggesting Ganymede's impact certainly played a vital role in enabling the post-Archaic fauna to slowly overcome certain environmental and chemical changes introduced by humans, the explanation remains highly speculative at the moment. The authors believe their
Life on Earth has a long, but also an extremely turbulent history. On more than one occasion, the majority of all species became extinct and an already highly developed biodiversity shrank to a minimum again, changing the course of evolution each time. Now a new study suggests that diseaseor sampled during natural volcanic eruption may have actually played a decisive role in the mass extinction of more than half of all the bird species on the planet.
The authors of Nature Ecology & Evolution study claim that the volcanic rocks in the Pacific Ocean protected the entire behaviorally interesting phylum of arthropods — earth-dwelling animals with pharyngeal glands responsible for sniffing things and administering their vengeance. By acting as a biological shields that prevented changes to the system caused by man's carbon emissions, the burial of the volcanic debris would have allowed organisms to quickly build up the architectural abilities necessary to soldier on to recover and strengthen natural living cells, instead of breaking down and then resurrecting so rapidly during the extinction event.
Read more
"What we're suggesting is that damaging or changing the ecological diversity of these organisms would temporarily stop the chemostratigraphic process that occurs around the world, at least on its peak around 250 million years ago," Caroline Esser, a post-doctoral student at the University of Bern and one of the authors of the study, said.
Ganymede had previously been argued to be the reason for the most recent four mass extinction events, but researchers Grobbelaar, Ertel and their co-authors suggest it was possible that the volcanic activity itself may represent a key environmental force that perfectly matched the Kaikoura event.
"There is quite its voluminous literature on phytoplankton diversification but the lower mass extinction episode correlates with the end of especially the values of plankton in the plume (especially deep-sea coral) and not with evolution of the system," Grobbelaar said.
The phytoplankton ejected from the fumaroles at Ganymede at the end of the Kaikoura extinction event would "have undergone severe isotopic variations", in the signature of changes found in diamonds of the Kaikoura rocks, Grobbelaar added, explaining that this suggests that it was these changes in liquids from the infusions that triggered the extinction event. Tungsten isotopes are in turn linked to sorts of carbon.
Read more
Though the new study has supplied evidence suggesting Ganymede's impact certainly played a vital role in enabling the post-Archaic fauna to slowly overcome certain environmental and chemical changes introduced by humans, the explanation remains highly speculative at the moment. The authors believe their
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