Collaborative Research: BoCP-Implementation: Testing Evolutionary Models of Biotic Survival and Recovery from the Permo-Triassic Mass Extinction and Climate Crisis

The Permo-Triassic mass extinction (PTME, ca. 251.9 million years ago) was the most catastrophic of the “Big Five” mass extinctions in Earth’s history. Massive volcanic events likely triggered a runaway greenhouse, resulting in the loss of about 85-90% of species globally. Studies over the last 20 years agree that modern species loss rivals the PTME, making it a significant and underutilized “deep time” study system that connects environmental change to functional biodiversity. While past studies have focused on the external causes of the extinction, this research will investigate ecosystem recovery from the PTME in South Africa’s Karoo Basin. Awareness of which species and ecosystems were more vulnerable or resilient to climate warming in the past is essential to guide conservation management by predicting long-term biotic responses to future environmental change. This research will comprise a multidisciplinary geochronologic and paleontological study of South Africa’s main Karoo Basin. We will assemble a stratigraphic database of fossil vertebrate occurrences and investigate the timing of vertebrate extinction and recovery relative to the geologic timescale, and we will test whether pulsed shifts in ecological diversity correlate to distinct climate events (e.g., the Early Triassic hyperthermal). To achieve these goals, we will 1) Synthesize geochronologic age controls and identify the precise position of the Permo-Triassic boundary in the Karoo Basin; 2) Identify shifts in ecomorphological and body size disparity within a novel high resolution stratigraphic framework; 3) Elucidate the influence of higher-level factors such as community structure on vertebrate diversity during the Early Triassic climate crisis; 4) Emphasize public outreach through educational theater in local South African languages (Puppet Planet), capacity-building, permanent archiving of physical specimens and digital data for future study (Virtual Field Trips, museum exhibit upgrades), and strengthening international collaborations between the USA and South Africa. Our collaborative research and outreach initiatives will raise awareness of the impacts of extreme environmental instability on vertebrate functional diversity and size evolution over time, with great value not only for understanding the PTME, but also conservation efforts in our modern biodiversity crisis. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.