Environmental changes, co-extinction, and patterns in the fossil record
Statistical Mechanics
2007-05-23 v1 Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
q-bio
Abstract
We introduce a new model for large scale evolution and extinction in which species are organized into food chains. The system evolves by two processes: origination/speciation and extinction. In the model, extinction of a given species can be due to an externally induced change in the environment or due to the extinction of all preys of that species (co-extinction). The model is able to reproduce the empirical observations, such as the statistical fractality of the fossil record or the scale-free distribution of extinction events, without invoking extinctions due to competition between species.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9804102,
title = {Environmental changes, co-extinction, and patterns in the fossil record},
author = {Luis A. N. Amaral and Martin Meyer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9804102},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
5 pages, 8 ps figures, using Latex2e with epsf rotate and multicol style files