98 Linking Biodiversity Loss to Environmental Stressors Through Integrated Approaches

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.

Monday, 20 October 2025
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
HBGCC, 304A

Selective Survival of Infaunal Decapods over the Cenomanian-Turonian Extinction (OAE2)

Paper number: 98-9
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 9:55 AM – 10:10 AM

Authors

Abstract

Environmental stress from climate warming poses significant threats to marine organisms. Climate change-driven mass extinctions, such as the Cenomanian-Turonian ocean anoxic event (OAE 2) provide an opportunity to test impacts of warming and anoxia over evolutionary timescales. Past studies indicate that infaunal organisms sometimes preferentially survived under climate-based mass extinctions, perhaps because infauna and semi-infauna have physiological, morphological and behavioral adaptations that help them tolerate hypoxia. We compiled a record of Cretaceous and Paleogene decapods from the literature using the Paleobiology Database and assigned life habit on the family level as epifaunal, infaunal, or semi-infaunal. Preliminary data indicate a lower rate of extinction throughout the late Cretaceous and Paleogene in infaunal decapods as compared to epifaunal decapods. Extinction rates in semi-infaunal decapods as compared to epifaunal decapods were roughly equivalent through OAE 2, and after the OAE, semi-infaunal extinction rates became higher than epifaunal rates toward the end Cretaceous. However, these patterns may be complicated by differences in taxonomic practice. Infaunal decapods are mainly known from their first cheliped, which does not change much over evolutionary time. This conservatism may lead to lumping and overestimation of duration, which leads to underestimation of extinction rate. Despite this bias, data is consistent with preferential survival of infauna during a climate change-driven mass extinction.

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

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-414927

© Copyright 2025 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.