The Winners of Mass Extinction: with Predators Gone, Prey Thrives
Monday, May 2, 2011 - 15:31
in Paleontology & Archaeology
In modern ecology, the removal or addition of a predator to an ecosystem can produce dramatic changes in the population of prey species. For the first time, scientists have observed the same dynamics in the fossil record, thanks to a mass extinction that decimated ocean life 360 million years ago.