A global database of middle–upper Permian foraminiferal genera has been compiled from the literature for 75 Guadalupian and 62 Lopingian localities, grouped into 32 and 19 operational geographical units respectively. Cluster analysis reveals that five distinct Guadalupian provinces were reduced to four in the Lopingian, following the disappearance of the Eastern Panthalassa Province. Extinction magnitudes across the Guadalupian/Lopingian (G/L) boundary reveal that, in the remaining provinces, there is a strong regional variation to the losses at low paleolatitudes. The Central and Western Tethys Province experienced a markedly lower extinction magnitude, at both provincial and global levels, than the Eastern and Northern Tethys Province. Panthalassa experienced a high extinction magnitude of endemics, but a global extinction magnitude similar to that recorded in Central and Western Tethys. This regional bias is seen in both the fusulinacean and non-fusulinacean foraminifera, although fusulinaceans suffered much higher magnitudes of extinction. The regional selectivity also persisted during the subsequent Lopingian radiations, with the Central and Western Tethys Province recording the greatest magnitudes. Thus, of 35 new genera recorded globally from the Lopingian, 27 of these are recorded in Central and Western Tethys, compared to five and 12 genera respectively in Panthalassa and in Eastern and Northern Tethys. The Emeishan large igneous province erupted within the Eastern and Northern Tethys Province and may have been a factor in the high extinction–low radiation regime of this region. Regression (and consequent shallow-marine habitat loss) also appears to have been a significant factor. A major, but brief, late Guadalupian regression is best seen in those areas that suffered the greatest extinction losses.

Many studies have examined temporal changes in insect feeding on angiosperm leaves, but none have considered variability within a single stratigraphic level. If spatial variability within a level is high, a single sample will not adequately represent the level and may either mask true temporal changes or create spurious ones. In order to measure the spatial variability in fossil insect feeding damage, I collected 12 replicate samples from two laterally extensive carbonaceous shale beds (55.2 and 52.6 Ma) from the early Eocene of the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming. Over 2800 fossil angiosperm leaves were scored for presence or absence of 50 insect damage morphotypes. Damage frequency, diversity, and composition were computed for both the bulk flora and individual plant species in each sample, and variation within a bed was compared with differences between the two beds. Differences in diversity and composition between beds were significantly greater than variations within a bed, and intra-bed variation was primarily due to differing floral composition. Damage frequency within a bed, however, was more variable than diversity. Damage diversity and composition reflect the number of insect species present, whereas damage frequency also depends on the number of insects present, which may be much more variable over small distances.

The concept of coordinated stasis, manifest as a pattern of long intervals of concurrent taxonomic and ecologic persistence separated by comparatively abrupt periods of biotic change, has been challenged in recent studies that claim a lack of prolonged persistence of taxa and associations. A key problem has been the difficulty of distinguishing faunal change owing to localized, short-term environmental fluctuation or patchiness from that indicating regionally pervasive, long-term evolutionary or ecological change. Here, we use an extensive database from the Middle Devonian Hamilton Group of the Appalachian Basin to test for taxonomic and ecologic persistence within this ecological-evolutionary subunit, a succession of purported relative stability. Replicate samples collected from many localities and stratigraphic horizons over a wide geographic area allow us to address the effects of small-scale environmental variation and localized faunal patchiness while exploring basin-scale variation in faunal composition within and between the formations of the Hamilton Group.

Observed stratigraphic distributions of fossils are consistent with a scenario in which all taxa are present from bottom to top of the Hamilton Group, and absences result only from sampling failure. Although small-scale variation in faunal composition indeed does occur, there is no more variation among formations than occurs within them. Assemblages from different formations, whether they are defined by taxonomic or ecologic composition, are statistically indistinguishable according to several independent metrics, including ANOSIM and a maximum likelihood estimation that evaluates stratigraphic turnover using Bayesian “Information Criterion.” Simulated data sets indicate that test results are most consistent with species-level extinction of 2.6% per Myr within the Hamilton Group, far lower than the Givetian rate of 11.5% per Myr generic extinction derived from a global database. Such faunal persistence over the ∼5.5 Myr encompassed by this unit is consistent with the pattern of coordinated stasis. Earlier studies showing greater amounts of temporal turnover in Hamilton Group faunas are likely influenced by their smaller geographic scale of analysis, suggesting that regional studies done elsewhere may yield similar results.

Most functional interpretations of ziphodont dentition are based on limited morphometric, behavioral, and taphonomic studies, but few are based on controlled observations of a modern ziphodont consumer. The purpose of this study is to determine through controlled feeding observations if the behaviors indicative of a ziphodont consumer are reflected by tooth marks left on bone surfaces by Varanus komodoensis, the Komodo monitor. We document feeding behavior, expand upon dental function, and correlate these aspects with tooth mark production. We also discuss the significance and limits of applying these data to fossil assemblages.

Goat carcasses were fed to 11 captive individuals. V. komodoensis modifies bone surfaces extensively. Individuals exhibit a “medial-caudal arc” when defleshing, followed by inertial swallowing. Bone crushing was not observed. The vast majority of tooth marks are scores, with pits being significantly less common. Tooth furrows and punctures are rare. “Edge marks” are produced on flat elements. Marks are elongate and narrow, with variable lengths and curvature. Over one-third of the marks occur within parallel clusters. Striations are evident on 5% of all marks.

Both feeding behavior and tooth marks indicate that ziphodont crowns are ideal for defleshing by being drawn distally through a carcass. Crowns are poorly built for crushing, and within-bone nutrients are acquired through swallowing. Mark production is a by-product of the distal crown movement during the flesh removal process. Scores are the consequence of apical dragging. Edge marks and striated scores result respectively from distal and mesial carinae contact. Mark curvature is the consequence of arcing motions. Parallel clusters may result from repetitive defleshing strokes and/or from multiple crown contacts during a stroke.

These observations can be used to draw functional, behavioral, and taphonomic interpretations from fossil assemblages. When they are provisionally applied to theropod tooth marks, similar crown function and defleshing behavior with little bone crushing is apparent. Differences occur concerning mark frequency and curvature, relating potentially to taphonomic biases and rostral motion, respectively.

The fossil record has been used to show that in some geologic intervals certain traits of taxa may increase their survivability, and therefore that the risk of extinction is not randomly distributed among taxa. It has also been suggested that traits that buffer against extinction in background times do not confer the same resistance during mass extinction events. An open question is whether at any time in geologic history extinction probabilities were randomly distributed among taxa. Here we use a method for detecting random extinction to demonstrate that during both background and mass extinction times, extinction of marine invertebrate genera has been nonrandom with respect to species richness categories of genera. A possible cause for this nonrandom extinction is selective clustering of extinctions in genera consisting of species which possess extinction-biasing traits. Other potential causes considered here include geographic selectivity, increased extinction susceptibility for species in species-rich genera, or biases related to taxonomic practice and/or sampling heterogeneity. An important theoretical result is that extinction selectivity at the species level cannot be smoothly extrapolated upward to genera; the appearance of random genus extinction with respect to species richness of genera results when extinction has been highly selective at the species level.

Radiocarbon-calibrated amino acid racemization ages of 428 individually dated shells representing four molluscan taxa are used to quantify time-averaging and shell half-lives with increasing burial depth in the shallow-water carbonate lagoon of Rib Reef, central Great Barrier Reef, Australia. The top 20 cm of sediment contains a distinct, essentially modern assemblage. Shells recovered at depths from 25 to 125 cm are age-homogeneous and significantly older than the surface layer. Taxon age distributions within sedimentary layers indicate that the top 125 cm of lagoonal sediment is thoroughly mixed on a sub-century scale. The age distributions and shell half-lives of four taxa (Ethalia, Natica, Tellina, and Turbo) are found to be largely distinct. Shell half-lives do not coincide with any single morphological characteristic thought to infer greater durability, but they are strongly related to a combined durability score based on shell density, thickness, and shape. These results illustrate the importance of bioturbation in tropical sedimentary environments, indicate that age estimates in this depositional setting are sensitive to taxon choice, and quantify a taxon-dependent bias in shell longevity and death assemblage formation.

The subfamily Equinae in the Great Plains region of North America underwent a dramatic radiation and subsequent decline as climate changed from warm and humid in the middle Miocene to cooler and more arid conditions during the late Miocene. Here we use ecological niche modeling (ENM), specifically the GARP (Genetic Algorithm using Rule-set Prediction) modeling system, to reconstruct the geographic distribution of individual species during two time slices from the middle Miocene through early Pliocene. This method combines known species occurrence points with environmental parameters inferred from sedimentological variables to model each species' fundamental niche. The geographic range of each species is then predicted to occupy the geographic area within the study region wherever the set of environmental parameters that constrain the fundamental niche occurs. We analyze changes in the predicted distributions of individual species between time slices in relation to Miocene/Pliocene climate change. Specifically, we examine and compare distribution patterns for two time slices that span the period from the mid-Miocene (Barstovian) Climatic Optimum into the early Pliocene (Blancan) to determine whether habitat fragmentation led to speciation within the clade and whether species survival was related to geographic range size. Patchy geographic distributions were more common in the middle Miocene when speciation rates were high. During the late Miocene, when speciation rates were lower, continuous geographic ranges were more common. Equid species tracked their preferred habitat within the Great Plains region as well as regionally throughout North America. Species with larger predicted ranges preferentially survived the initial cooling event better than species with small geographic ranges. As climate continued to deteriorate in the late Miocene, however, range size became irrelevant to survival, and extinction rates increased for species of all range sizes. This is the first use of ENM and GARP in the continental fossil record. This powerful quantitative biogeographic method offers great promise for studies of other taxa and geologic intervals.

Previous analyses of the history of Phanerozoic marine biodiversity suggested that the post-Paleozoic increase observed at the family level and below was caused, in part, by an increase in global provinciality associated with the breakup of Pangea. Efforts to characterize the Phanerozoic history of provinciality, however, have been compromised by interval-to-interval variations in the methods and standards used by researchers to calibrate the number of provinces. With the development of comprehensive, occurrence-based data repositories such as the Paleobiology Database (PaleoDB), it is now possible to analyze directly the degree of global compositional disparity as a function of geographic distance (geo-disparity) and changes thereof throughout the history of marine animal life. Here, we present a protocol for assessing the Phanerozoic history of geo-disparity, and we apply it to stratigraphic bins arrayed throughout the Phanerozoic for which data were accessed from the PaleoDB. Our analyses provide no indication of a secular Phanerozoic increase in geo-disparity. Furthermore, fundamental characteristics of geo-disparity may have changed from era to era in concert with changes to marine venues, although these patterns will require further scrutiny in future investigations.

Abundance is one of the primary factors believed to influence extinction yet little is known about its relationship to extinction rates over geologic time. Using data from the Paleobiology Database we show that abundance was an important factor in the extinction dynamics of marine bivalve genera over the post-Paleozoic. Contrary to expectations, our analyses reveal a nonlinear relationship between abundance and extinction rates, with rare and abundant genera exhibiting rates elevated over those of genera of moderate abundance. This U-shaped pattern is a persistent feature of the post-Paleozoic history of marine bivalves and provides one possible explanation for why we find strong support for heterogeneous extinction rates among genera grouped by similarity in abundance yet effectively no net relationship among these rates when using models of directional selection on abundance.