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Global extinction events and persistent age-dependency in sharks and rays over the past 145 million years
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Daniele Silvestro ,
Gregor Hans Mathes ,
Jaime Andres Villafaña ,
Catalina Pimiento
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Volume: 292, Issue: 2061, Start page: 20252272
Swansea University Author:
Catalina Pimiento
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© 2025 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
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DOI (Published version): 10.1098/rspb.2025.2272
Abstract
Understanding extinction mechanisms, including what traits make some species more vulnerable than others, is key in a changing world. It has been proposed that species’ age predicts extinction risk. However, our understanding of age-dependent extinction (ADE) remains unresolved, with positive and ne...
| Published in: | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
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| ISSN: | 1471-2954 |
| Published: |
The Royal Society
2025
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| Online Access: |
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71034 |
| Abstract: |
Understanding extinction mechanisms, including what traits make some species more vulnerable than others, is key in a changing world. It has been proposed that species’ age predicts extinction risk. However, our understanding of age-dependent extinction (ADE) remains unresolved, with positive and negative trends being modelled only as mutually exclusive, and rarely across clade-specific diversification trajectories. Here, we reconstruct the global diversification trajectory of neoselachians (modern sharks and rays) over the past 145 Myr to assess ADE using a new model that allows positive and negative trends to co-occur. We recovered a dynamic diversification trajectory, including four previously undetected extinction events, the most significant in the Eocene–Oligocene. Negative ADE was consistently found over time, with young species, especially those younger than 4 Myr, being more vulnerable. Our results suggest that neoselachians have been more susceptible to extinction than previously recognized, with age being a consistent intrinsic predictor of their vulnerability through deep time. |
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| Keywords: |
age-dependent extinction, diversification, extinctions, Neoselachii, sharks |
| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |
| Funders: |
This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (PRIMA_185798 to C.P.), the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (MISTRA) under the BIOPATH research programme (F 2022/1448 to D.S.), and ETH Zurich (D.S.). |
| Issue: |
2061 |
| Start Page: |
20252272 |