Five hundred million years of extinction and recovery: A phanerozoic survey of large-scale diversity patterns in fishes

Abstract

Fishes include more than half of all living animals with backbones, but large-scale palaeobiological patterns in this assemblage have not received the same attention as those for terrestrial vertebrates. Previous surveys of the fish record have generally been anecdotal, or limited either in their stratigraphic or in their taxonomic scope. Here, we provide a broad overview of the Phanerozoic history of fish diversity, placing a special emphasis on intervals of turnover, evolutionary radiation, and extinction. In particular, we provide in-depth reviews of changes during, and ecological and evolutionary recovery after, the end-Devonian (Hangenberg) and Cretaceous-Palaeogene (K-Pg) extinctions. © The Palaeontological Association.