Setting the record right: species diversity less dramatic than previousl...( COLLEGE STATION July 7 2008 A study...)

COLLEGE STATION, July 7, 2008 A study published in the current issue of Science challenges the long-held belief that diversity of marine species has been increasing continuously since the origin of animals. Dr. Thomas D. Olszewski, a geology and geophysics professor at Texas A&M University, has been a part of the international team that carried out this decade-long study, which concludes that most of the diversification occurred early on relatively speaking.

"The general understanding for many decades has been that since the rise of the modern major groups of animals about 545 million years ago (i.e., since the beginning of the Phanerozoic Era), the diversity of animal life in the seas has undergone a roughly four-fold exponential increase," says Olszewski. A steep increase in the diversity was believed to have occurred only between 145 million and 60 million years ago.

But many paleontologists were doubtful about the accuracy of this theory, which was derived using older methods. Olszewski explains that the older methods did not account for many important occurrences in the history of the Earth, including changes in the geography of Earth due to continental drift and variations in the state of global climate.

Collaborative efforts of 35 researchers from the U.S., Germany, the UK, France and Slovakia resulted in a more accurate interpretation of the prehistoric data. Olszewski says that the researchers used a "fundamentally new analysis, which differs in several important aspects from the previous [methods used for] understanding of the history of marine diversity."

The analysis helped the researchers conclude that the increase in species diversity through the Phanerozoic Era was much less dramatic than previously believed. "Diversity levels comparable to the present day appear to have been reached after a few tens of millions of years following the first appearance of modern animal groups," says Olszewski.

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