Climate change that occurred 307 million years ago caused some species to perish and others to thrive, according to a new study.
The research, from the University of Birmingham, suggests some species of tetrapods – vertebrates that have four feet – were greatly affected by the onset of a less humid climate millions of years ago.
The change resulted in mass extinctions, but it caused some groups, among them the species that gave rise to modern mammals, to thrive and expand across the world, according to the new study.
Researchers from the University of Birmingham analyzed events from the Carboniferous and Permian periods for the new study.
The periods, which happened 358 to 272 million years ago, are some of the most important in the history of lifeforms on dry land.
During the Carboniferous period, Europe and North America were connected and they lay at the equator, which was covered by tropical rain forests.
The humid and warm climate around the equator allowed the rain forests to thrive.
The climate also allowed tetrapods to diversify, and a variety of species emerged.
However, near this period’s end, around the time that the number of tetrapod species in existence was rising, the climate in the region became drier.
This resulted in the extinction of many species in plant groups that were dominant at the time, among them club mosses and horsetails.
Until now, researchers knew only how the plant community was affected by this shift. But the new study reveals the impact it had on the tetrapod community.
The reason that scientists were not able to discern the changes made to the tetrapod community earlier is blamed on gaps in fossil record data.
But the Birmingham researchers worked around this by creating a data set based on the Paleobiology Database.
They estimated biogeographic and diversity changes by way of advanced statistical methods and found that tetrapod diversity went down following the collapse of the rainforest and occurrence of less humid conditions.
The researchers believe this happened because there were less suitable habitats fit for amphibians, which require wet environments.
But the scientists also learned that – following the rainforest collapse – the remaining tetrapod species subsequently expanded all over the world, traveling long distances from the equator.
Early amniotes, reptiles included, were among the climate change survivors. Scientists explained that this could be related to the fact that they were larger compared to amphibians and could, therefore, travel greater distances.
Read more at Daily Mail
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