Climate-biosphere

Co-evolution of climate and the marine biosphere

Objective

I am presently focusing on the co-evolution of marine Life and the physical environment. Why did marine Life undergo such a drastic explosion and diversification during the Early Paleozoic? What drivers shaped its temporal evolution? I use the GENIE Earth System Model to simulate the evolution of the physical environment (ocean oxygenation in particular) during the Phanerozoic, and the consequence on the marine biosphere at various temporal and spatial scales.

Simulated Cambrian phytoplankton (acritarch) biodiversity. Biodiversity was simulated using the METAL model, based on sea-surface temperatures simulated using the FOAM ocean-atmosphere general circulation model. After Zacai, Monnet, Pohl et al., 2021.

Selected references

  • Cermeño, P., Garcìa-Comas, C., Pohl, A., Williams, S., Benton, M., Le Gland, G., Muller, R.D., Ridgwell, A., Vallina, S., 2022. Post-extinction recovery of the Phanerozoic oceans and biodiversity hotspots. Nature, doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04932-6. [link]

  • Stockey, R.G., Pohl, A., Ridgwell, A., Finnegan, S., Sperling, A., 2021, Decreasing Phanerozoic extinction intensity as a consequence of Earth surface oxygenation and metazoan ecophysiology, PNAS, v. 118(41), e2101900118, doi:10.1073/pnas.2101900118. [link]

  • Zacaï, A., Monnet, C., Pohl, A., Beaugrand, G., Mullins, G., Kroeck, D.M., Servais, T., 2021: Truncated bimodal latitudinal diversity gradient in early Paleozoic phytoplankton. Science Advances 7(15), eabd6709. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abd6709. [link]

  • Saupe, E., Qiao, H., Donnadieu, Y., Farnsworth, A., Kennedy-Asser, A., Ladant, J.-B., Lunt, D., Pohl, A., Valdes, P., Finnegan, S., 2019. Extinction intensity during Ordovician and Cenozoic glaciations explained by cooling and palaeogeography. Nature Geoscience 12, 65–70. doi: 10.1038/s41561-019-0504-6. [link]