188 Linking Biodiversity Loss to Environmental Stressors Through Integrated Approaches (Posters)

Biodiversity crises serve as natural experiments to explore extinction selectivity and ecosystem restructuring. We highlight studies using model-data comparisons to link biodiversity loss with environmental stressors by integrating paleobiology, geochemistry, ecophysiology, and Earth system modeling.

Tuesday, 21 October 2025
8:00 AM - 5:30 PM
HBGCC, Hall 1

Investigating the response of Glycymeris septentrionalis (Bivalvia) and Terebratalia transversa (Brachiopoda) to euxinia: implications for mass extinctions

Paper number: 188-2
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:00 AM – 8:00 AM

Authors

Abstract

In the wake of the end-Permian mass extinction, bivalves replaced articulate brachiopods as the dominant filter-feeders of the benthic marine realm, despite morphological and ecological similarities. Several theories have been raised to explain the extinction’s selectivity, including competition, ocean acidity, CO2 poisoning, and reproductive potential. The spread of sulfidic water masses (euxinia) has been proposed several times as a general kill mechanism but its physiological selectivity has not been investigated. Laboratory survival studies of a bivalve (Glycymeris septentrionalis) and an articulate brachiopod (Terebratalia transversa) sourced locally from Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, WA, were carried out in controlled anoxic and euxinic environments at 13.7, 16, and 22 °C. Bivalves generally outperformed brachiopods in all scenarios, and by a greater margin in euxinia. The alignment between physiological tolerance in experimental settings and survival patterns in the paleontological record indicates that euxinia may have played a role in end-Permian extinction severity and selectivity, serving as an additional stressor in already warm, oxygen-depleted oceans.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 57, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-412281

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