# Lineages of Fractal Genera Comprise the 88-Million-Year Steel Evolutionary Spine of the Ecosphere

## TL;DR

This paper explores how certain ancient lineages have maintained biodiversity and resilience for 88 million years through fractal evolutionary processes.

## Contribution

The study introduces a novel model of fractal evolution that explains long-term resilience and biodiversity maintenance in Streptotrichaceae.

## Key findings

- Only four ancestral traits were permanently eliminated in any lineage or sub-lineage.
- Maximum character state changes in ancestral traits were 16% per sub-lineage or 73% total.
- Lineages maintain survival-effective traits with minimal resilience cost over 88 million years.

## Abstract

Fractal evolution is apparently effective in selectively preserving environmentally resilient traits for more than 80 million years in Streptotrichaceae (Bryophyta). An analysis simulated maximum destruction of ancestral traits in that large lineage. The constraints enforced were the preservation of newest ancestral traits, and all immediate descendant species obtained different new traits. Maximum character state changes in ancestral traits were 16 percent of all possible traits in any one sub-lineage, or 73 percent total of the entire lineage. Results showed, however, that only four ancestral traits were permanently eliminated in any one lineage or sub-lineage. A lineage maintains maximum biodiversity of temporally and regionally survival-effective traits at minimum expense to resilience across a geologic time of 88 million years for the group studied. Similar processes generating an extant punctuated equilibrium as bursts of about four descendants per genus and one genus per 1–2 epochs are possible in other living groups given similar emergent processes. The mechanism is considered complexity-related, the lineage being a self-organized emergent phenomenon strongly maintained in the ecosphere by natural selection on fractal genera.