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Silvestro, D, Castiglione, S, Mondanaro, A, Serio, C, Melchionna, M, Piras, P, Di Febbraro, M, Carotenuto, F, Rook, L and Raia, P (2019) A 450 million years long latitudinal gradient in age-dependent extinction. Ecology Letters. ISSN 1461-0248
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A 450 million years long latitudinal gradient in age-dependent extinction.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (723kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Leigh Van Valen famously stated that under constant conditions extinction probability is independent of species age. To test this 'law of constant extinction', we developed a new method using deep learning to infer age-dependent extinction and analysed 450 myr of marine life across 21 invertebrate clades. We show that extinction rate significantly decreases with age in > 90% of the cases, indicating that most species died out soon after their appearance while those which survived experienced ever decreasing extinction risk. This age-dependent extinction pattern is stronger towards the Equator and holds true when the potential effects of mass extinctions and taxonomic inflation are accounted for. These results suggest that the effect of biological interactions on age-dependent extinction rate is more intense towards the tropics. We propose that the latitudinal diversity gradient and selection at the species level account for this exceptional, yet little recognised, macroevolutionary and macroecological pattern.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | 0501 Ecological Applications, 0602 Ecology, 0603 Evolutionary Biology |
| Subjects: | G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences |
| Divisions: | Biological & Environmental Sciences (from Sep 19) |
| Publisher: | Wiley |
| Related URLs: | |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Feb 2020 10:10 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Sep 2021 07:57 |
| DOI or ID number: | 10.1111/ele.13441 |
| URI: | https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/12203 |
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