Note: this topic is from 11/25/2006.
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Posted on 11/25/2006 3:34:53 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The earth experienced its biggest mass extinction about 250 million years ago, an event that wiped out an estimated 95% of marine species and 70% of land species. New research shows that this mass extinction did more than eliminate species: it fundamentally changed the basic ecology of the world's oceans... Specifically, the data and analyses concern models of relative abundance found in fossil communities throughout the Phanerozoic. The ecological implications are striking. Simple marine ecosystems suggest that bottom-dwelling organisms partitioned their resources similarly. Complex marine ecosystems suggest that interactions among different species, as well as a greater variety of ways of life, affected abundance distributions. Prior to the end-Permian mass extinction, both types of marine ecosystems (complex and simple) were equally common. After the mass extinction, however, the complex communities outnumbered the simple communities nearly 3:1.
(Excerpt) Read more at physorg.com ...
"The Earth is a farm. We are someone else's property." -- Charles Fort
Definitely.
Note: this topic is from 11/25/2006.
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