The tectonic cause of mass extinctions and the genomic contribution to biodiversification

TL;DR

This paper links mass extinctions and biodiversity trends to tectonic processes, climate instability, and genome evolution, emphasizing the importance of broad temporal and molecular contexts in understanding life's history.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model explaining Phanerozoic biodiversity evolution through tectonic, climatic, and genomic data, highlighting the molecular level's role in survival.

Findings

P-Tr extinction caused by tectonic climate instability

Biodiversification driven by genome size evolution

Biodiversity fluctuations result from interactions among Earth's spheres

Abstract

Despite numerous mass extinctions in the Phanerozoic eon, the overall trend in biodiversity evolution was not blocked and the life has never been wiped out. Almost all possible catastrophic events (large igneous province, asteroid impact, climate change, regression and transgression, anoxia, acidification, sudden release of methane clathrate, multi-cause etc.) have been proposed to explain the mass extinctions. However, we should, above all, clarify at what timescale and at what possible levels should we explain the mass extinction? Even though the mass extinctions occurred at short-timescale and at the species level, we reveal that their cause should be explained in a broader context at tectonic timescale and at both the molecular level and the species level. The main result in this paper is that the Phanerozoic biodiversity evolution has been explained by reconstructing the Sepkoski curve based on climatic, eustatic and genomic data. Consequently, we point out that the P-Tr extinction was caused by the tectonically originated climate instability. We also clarify that the overall trend of biodiversification originated from the underlying genome size evolution, and that the fluctuation of biodiversity originated from the interactions among the earth's spheres. The evolution at molecular level had played a significant role for the survival of life from environmental disasters.