Novel analytical methods emerging over the last decade, combined with a wealth of fossil occurrence data accrued over the last half century, have transformed our understanding of past biodiversity and its drivers on the grandest macroevolutionary scales. This has been accompanied, however, by ever increasing awareness of two pervasive biases which distort the deep history of the biosphere as portrayed by its fragmentary geological record. One of these biases, the uneven distribution of fossils through geological time, has received substantial conceptual and methodological attention. The other bias, the uneven distribution of fossils across geographic space has only recently come to the attention of palaeontologists. Its effects on the inextricably linked facets of biodiversity and biogeography are simultaneously a profound cause for concern but also a largely unexplored frontier within palaeobiology. In this thesis I draw upon advances in quantifying diversification dynamics from fossil data and Earth system modelling in deep time to conduct spatially explicit analyses of biodiversity and biogeography and explore ways of circumventing the spatial biases posed by the geological record. I use the Triassic period as a testing ground for these approaches to unpick the dynamic interplay of environmental and biological events that set the foundations for our modern biosphere during this interval, focusing on marine biodiversity through times of biotic crisis, the rise of scleractinian coral reefs, and the radiation of archosauromorph reptiles. I demonstrate that while geographically sensitive analytical methods augmented by the spatially complete views of climate and palaeogeography from Earth-system models can provide powerful insight into past biodiversity and biogeography, substantial challenges remain before the biases inherent in the fossil record can be mitigated.
Revolution on land and sea: bias, biodiversity and biogeography through the Triassic
Flannery-Sutherland, J. T. (Author). 5 Dec 2023
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)