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Published online on June 4, 2002, 10.1073/pnas.122225499
PNAS | June 11, 2002 | vol. 99 | no. 12 | 7832-7835


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Geology / Evolution
 Documenting a significant relationship between macroevolutionary origination rates and Phanerozoic pCO2 levels

James L. Cornette*,dagger ,Dagger , Bruce S. Lieberman*,§, and Robert H. Goldstein*

Departments of * Geology and § Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045; and dagger  Department of Mathematics, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011

Communicated by Robert A. Berner, Yale University, New Haven, CT, April 15, 2002 (received for review February 8, 2002)

We show that the rates of diversification of the marine fauna and the levels of atmospheric CO2 have been closely correlated for the past 545 million years. These results, using two of the fundamental databases of the Earth's biota and the Earth's atmospheric composition, respectively, are highly statistically significant (P < 0.001). The strength of the correlation suggests that one or more environmental variables controlling CO2 levels have had a profound impact on evolution throughout the history of metazoan life. Comparing our work with highly significant correlations described by D. H. Rothman [Rothman, D. H. (2001) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98, 4305-4310] between total biological diversity and a measure of stable carbon isotope fractionation, we find that the rates of diversification rather than total diversification correlate with environmental variables, and that the rate of diversification follows the record of CO2 projected by R. A. Berner and Z. Kothavala [Berner, R. A. & Kothavala, Z. (2001) Am. J. Sci. 301, 182-204] more closely than that predicted by Rothman.

Dagger To whom reprint requests should be addressed. E-mail: cornette{at}ku.edu.

www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.122225499
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