Decoupled taxonomic diversity and morphological complexity during two Early Triassic extinctions

Miao L, Dai X, Brayard A, Liu X, Foster WJ, Song H (2026)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2026

Journal

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology Elsevier

Book Volume: 699

Article Number: 114062

DOI: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2026.114062

Abstract

During extinction events, taxonomic diversity declines were often coupled with declining morphological complexity. Here, we studied the morphological complexity dynamics of ammonoids estimated from their ornamentation complexity, after the Permian-Triassic boundary and throughout the Early Triassic, a time interval covering two extinction events during the Olenekian. The analyzed zonal scale stratigraphic dataset comprises 603 species across 272 genera from the Early–Middle Triassic and shows that ornamentation complexity did not decline during these two crises, despite significant drops in both genus and species richnesses. We propose that since environmental changes during the late Smithian and late Spathian were not as severe as the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, morphological redundancy may have decreased, but overall morphological complexity was partly maintained by surviving ammonoid species.

Involved external institutions

China University of Geosciences / 中国地质大学 CN China (CN) Université Bourgogne Europe FR France (FR) Universität Hamburg (UHH) DE Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Miao, L., Dai, X., Brayard, A., Liu, X., Foster, W.J., & Song, H. (2026). Decoupled taxonomic diversity and morphological complexity during two Early Triassic extinctions. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 699. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2026.114062

MLA:

Miao, Luyi, et al. "Decoupled taxonomic diversity and morphological complexity during two Early Triassic extinctions." Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 699 (2026).

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