Biogeography extinction climate change
New research has demonstrated that a combination of ocean warming and oxygen loss can largely account for the magnitude and geographic pattern of the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history. The study assembled physiological tolerances from laboratory studies of modern taxa, and global biogeographic data from OBIS, to derive a suite of traits that characterize the diversity of temperature-dependent hypoxia tolerance across several phyla in today’s ocean. In the context of model-simulated climate change at the end of the Permian period (252 Mya), these tolerances predicted patterns of habitat loss and extinction, which were confirmed with a novel analysis of the fossil record of ‘The Great Dying’. The results imply that the dual stressors of warming and oxygen loss currently underway due to human-induced climate change, pose a significant risk to marine species throughout the world’s ocean, especially those at high latitudes.
Reference: Penn, J. P., Deutsch, C., Payne, J. L., & Sperling, E. A. (2018). Temperature-dependent hypoxia explains biogeography and severity of end-Permian marine mass extinction. Science, 362, doi:10.1126/science.aat1327
