Surviving Extinction: Traits Encouraging Survival at Times of Stress

Understanding the response of marine organisms to future global warming, and associated changes such as acidification and oxygenation, is difficult to evaluate based on modern observations alone. This uncertainty will be addressed by studying the fate of marine organisms during the warmer-than-present climate of the Triassic – an interval marked by several major extinction crises attributed to such factors.

A major database of species and genera ranges will be constructed for selected groups showing varying susceptibility to stressors alongside a proxy database of environmental variables. This project will assess patterns in this dataset using state-of-the-art subsampling and residual modelling techniques and GIS-based packages to reveal the selective roles of kill factors.