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NOVELTY HOTSPOTS. “Certain habitats and regions, such as onshore marine settings, and the tropics in both marine and terrestrial settings, appear to be important sources of postextinction evolutionary novelty.” http://www.pnas.org/content/98/10/5393.full/Donnie) View in LinkedIn

APHID SUICIDE. "Observations of organismal suicide have been carefully researched and documented. Pea aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum) that are parasitized by the Braconid wasp Aphidius ervi drop from the host plant, causing their own death." https://lnkd.in/ecP3KMX View in LinkedIn

TIMEFRAMES. “The fossil record shows that destructive and generative aspects of extinction generally operate in different time frames. Recoveries of different biomes, clades, or communities may have different postextinction lag times.” http://www.pnas.org/content/98/10/5393.full/Donnie) View in LinkedIn

NO GUARANTEES. “Survivorship during mass extinctions need not be closely related to many aspects of biological success as measured during “background” times.” http://www.pnas.org/content/98/10/5393.full/Donnie) View in LinkedIn

ONGOING EVENTS. “Mass extinctions happen. The fossil record provides ample evidence that even the more widespread and species-rich clades, ecosystems, and biogeographic provinces are not infinitely resilient.” http://www.pnas.org/content/98/10/5393.full/Donnie) View in LinkedIn

CONCLUSION. “I would not go far wrong in saying that the most dramatic evolutionary effects of mass extinctions can be epitomized in just four words: they remove successful incumbents.” http://www.pnas.org/content/98/10/5393.full/Donnie) View in LinkedIn

BOOM TIME. “The significant increase in standing diversity began approximately 500 million years ago. During the Ordovician, marine family diversity tripled and those clades that came to dominate the next 250 million years radiated.” (See Figure 1). https://lnkd.in/eVq28Qh View in LinkedIn

DIVERSIFICATION CONTINUED. “Marine family diversity tripled and within clade diversity increases occurred at the genus and species levels. The Ordovician radiation established the Paleozoic Evolutionary Fauna; those taxa which dominated the marine realm for the next 250 million years. Community structure dramatically increased in complexity.” https://lnkd.in/eVq28Qh View in LinkedIn

LATER COMPLEXIFICATION. “There was a major diversification known as the Ordovician Radiation, in the period immediately following the Cambrian. This event is unique in taxonomic, ecologic and biogeographic aspects. While all of the phyla but one were established during the Cambrian explosion, taxonomic increases during the Ordovician were manifest at lower taxonomic levels although ordinal level diversity doubled.” https://lnkd.in/eVq28Qh View in LinkedIn

“NO NEW PHYLA have evolved since the Cambrian.” Meditate on this one. https://lnkd.in/ex6BW5w View in LinkedIn