Abstract:
Extinction events range from those that remove a single
population from a local habitat to those megacatastrophes
that obliterate tens of thousands of species over
continents or oceans. When considering megacatastrophes,
and especially whether a particular fossil cnronology
documents one of the latter, catastrophes are
generally viewed as short-term events with snorHerm
direct consequences: the catastrophe occurs, species go
extinct, and ambient conditions rapidly return to "normal"
(after which the survivors spread, multiply, re-radiate,
etc.). However, the pre-catastrophe presence of
widespread species may blur our perception of a catastrophic
event, since their resultant extinctions may occur
hundreds to thousands of years after the event. Such
a paleoscenario is relevant to the contemporary scene in
tropical conservation biology; we are currently being
deceived by the same blurry perception.
