An Underwater Revolution Millions of Years Ago Rewrote The Script of The Ocean
13 MARCH 2021
Look far enough back in time, and a pattern may emerge. After studying thousands of ancient fossils, paleontologist Jack Sepkoski identified just such a thing in 1981: an epic sequence of life and death, etched into the skeletons of the last 500 million years.
The late Sepkoski, a professor at the University of Chicago, discovered what became known as the three great evolutionary faunas of marine animals – a trio of successive explosions in biodiversity in the ocean over the course of the Phanerozoic Eon.
These giant bloomings of marine life were bookended by catastrophes of world-changing scale: extinction-level events precipitating mass animal die-offs – simultaneously clearing the stage for new creatures to emerge and prosper in the spaces they left behind.
Descubren que el aumento de los depredadores marinos revolucionó la vida oceánica de forma tan drástica como las extinciones masivas
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IMAGE: A seminal 1981 study organized the a history of ocean life into three hierarchies, with certain animals reigning the seas during each time periods. Two mass extinctions cleared the way. view more
Credit: Jeff Gage/Florida Museum of Natural History
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Evolutionary arms races between marine animals overhauled ocean ecosystems on scales similar to the mass extinctions triggered by global disasters, a new study shows.
Scientists at Umeå University in Sweden and the Florida Museum of Natural History used paleontological databases to build a multilayered computer model of the history of marine life over the last 500 million years. Their analysis of the fossil record closely echoed a seminal 1981 study by paleontologist J. John Sepkoski - with one key difference.
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Ryan Powell
The Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum has named Ryan Powell as its new finance manager.
Powell, who has lived in the Fort Myers area for most of his life, completed his bachelor’s in accounting at Florida Gulf Coast University. He most recently worked as an accountant for Wiltshire, Whitley, Richardson & English, a Fort Myers accounting firm. Powell also brings extensive management experience to the museum, after working for Publix Super Markets for 14 years.
His volunteer work with the United Way and its partner agencies over the years has shifted his interest to working in the nonprofit realm, and Powell is thrilled to join the museum team and become a part of the Sanibel community.