In the coming century, life in the ocean will be confronted with a suite of environmental conditions that have no analog in human history. Will marine species adapt or go extinct?
The last two years I have been involved in a dynamic working group called “Determinants of extinction in ancient and modern seas” led by Paul Harnik, Rowan Lockwood and Seth Finnegan and funded by NESCent. The aim of the working group is to use the history of life as preserved in the fossil record to help make better predictions about where life is heading in the future, especially in view of the looming sixth mass extinction.
We have just published our first paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution. The study compares the patterns, drivers, and biological correlates of marine extinctions in the fossil, historical, and modern records and evaluates how this information can be used to better predict the impact of current and projected future environmental changes on extinction risk in the sea.
Download the pdf of the paper by clicking on the image.
O'Dea Lab 
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