June 17 (UPI) -- Ever since scientists realized that rising greenhouse gas emissions were warming planet Earth, scientists have been trying to figure out what life will look like as temperatures rise.
According to a new study, the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event, known as the Great Dying, can offer clues.
Triggered by a combination of volcanic activity and dramatic greenhouse warming, the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event was the deadliest in the last 500 million years of evolutionary history, wiping out some 95 percent of all species on Earth.
To better understand the catastrophe that reshaped the planet's biology some 252 million years ago, scientists in Britain surveyed the spatial biodiversity patterns across the Permian-Triassic boundary.
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The patterns offered scientists insights into how tropical biodiversity responds to sudden increases in temperature.
"Higher equatorial diversity has been recognized for over 200 years, but the consistency of this pattern throughout Earth history has been uncertain," lead study author Bethany Allen, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leeds, said in a news release. "The Late Permian to Middle Triassic is an ideal time interval to examine biodiversity trends. It is characterized by large-scale volcanic episodes, extreme greenhouse temperatures, and the most severe mass extinction event in Earth's history."
During the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event, fossil records show temperatures in the tropics rose so high that equatorial ecosystems were unable to support high levels of biodiversity and populations of large animals.
Scientists published the results of their spatial survey on Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Proceedings B.
"In the face of a rapidly warming planet, this window into our past could offer a glimpse into the future of those regions and the very real risk to the species that live there if we do not act to curb our carbon emissions and limit global warming," Allen said.
