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Environmentally driven extinction and opportunistic origination explain fern diversification patterns.

Samuli Lehtonen1,2, Daniele Silvestro3,4,5,6, Dirk Nikolaus Karger7,8

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Palaeontology
  • Botany

Background:

  • Ferns represent a major terrestrial plant radiation with a rich evolutionary history.
  • Understanding diversification drivers requires integrating fossil and modern data.
  • Previous models often struggle to link diversification dynamics with environmental changes.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop a novel Bayesian model for estimating correlations between diversification dynamics and environmental trajectories.
  • To investigate the roles of biotic and abiotic factors in controlling fern species diversification.
  • To differentiate the drivers of origination and extinction in plant evolution.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of a comprehensive dataset of fossil occurrences spanning 400 million years.
  • Complementary analysis of a large molecular phylogeny of ferns.
  • Development and application of a novel Bayesian model to simultaneously estimate multiple environmental impacts on diversification.

Main Results:

  • Origination rates in ferns are primarily influenced by within-group diversity, showing little response to environmental shifts.
  • Extinction rates are significantly impacted by external factors, including climate and geological events.
  • Environmentally driven extinction emerges as the primary factor shaping fern diversity dynamics over evolutionary time.

Conclusions:

  • Extinction, not origination, is the main engine of diversity change in ferns, driven by environmental factors.
  • Origination acts as an opportunistic process, responding to reduced competition when ecospace becomes available.
  • Integrating palaeontological and neontological data with advanced statistical models is crucial for understanding evolutionary dynamics.