Marie Curie International Fellowship: SurE-TESTS

Start date: 1 September 2016
End date: 1 August 2017
Funder: Marie Curie International Fellowship
Primary investigator: Professor Paul Wignall
External primary investigator:
Dr Song Haijun (Wuhan)
Co-investigators: Dr Alex Dunhill

This research programme investigated the traits that contributed to the extinction and survival of marine invertebrates during Permian-Jurassic times, an interval characterized by several extinction crises interspersed with longer intervals of recovery and radiation. Databases of generic ranges at a high stratigraphic level (substage) were completed along with a proxy database of geochemical indices (carbon, oxygen and sulphur isotopes etc.) in order to construct palaeonvironment changes alongside the fortunes of the marine fauna. One of the major discoveries was that paptterns of recovery after the Permo-Triassic mass extinction show a different trajectory for taxonomic diversity and ecological structure. The changes wrought by the crisis were particularly long-lasting for the pelagic realm and were still on going by the time the next extinction struck at the end of the Triassic (Song et al. in press).

Publications and outputs

Song H-J., Wignall, P.B. & Dunhill, A.M. in press. Decoupled taxonomic and ecological recoveries from the Permo-Triassic extinction. Science Advances.