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Evolutionary dynamics of plants and animals: a comparative approachPatterns of longevity and rate of appearance of taxa in the fossil record indicate a different evolutionary dynamic between land plants and marine invertebrates. Among marine invertebrates, rates of taxonomic turnover declined through the Phanerozoic, with increasingly extinction-resistant, long-lived, clades coming to dominate. Among terrestrial vascular plants, rates of turnover increased through the Phanerozoic, with short-lived, extinction-prone clades coming to dominate from the Devonian to the present. Terrestrial vertebrates appear to approximate the marine invertebrate pattern more closely than the plant record. We identify two features which individually or jointly may have influenced this distinction. First, land plants continuously invaded stressful environments during their evolution, while marine invertebrates and terrestrial vertebrates did not. Second, the relative structural simplicity and indeterminate mode of plant growth vs. the relative structural complexity and determinate mode of animal growth may have influenced the timing of major clade origin in the two groups.
Document ID
20040121761
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Valentine, J. W.
(Museum of Paleontology, University of California Berkeley 94720, United States)
Tiffney, B. H.
Sepkoski, J. J. Jr
Sepkoski JJ, J. r.
Date Acquired
August 22, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1991
Publication Information
Publication: Palaios
Volume: 6
ISSN: 0883-1351
Subject Category
Life Sciences (General)
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: EAR84-17011
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAG2-282
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAGW-1693
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other
Keywords
Review
NASA Program Exobiology
NASA Discipline Exobiology
Review, Tutorial
NASA Discipline Number 52-40
Non-NASA Center

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