title: Possible origin of stagnation and variability of earth's biodiversity.
abstract: The magnitude and variability of Earth's biodiversity have puzzled scientists ever since paleontologic fossil databases became available. We identify and study a model of interdependent species where both endogenous and exogenous impacts determine the nonstationary extinction dynamics. The framework provides an explanation for the qualitative difference of marine and continental biodiversity growth. In particular, the stagnation of marine biodiversity may result from a global transition from an imbalanced to a balanced state of the species dependency network. The predictions of our framework are in agreement with paleontologic databases.
authors.affiliation: Network Dynamics Group, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI DS) Göttingen, Am Fassberg 17, 37077 Göttingen, Germany and Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI DS) Göttingen, and Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics, Faculty of Physics, University of Göttingen, Am Fassberg 17, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Stollmeier
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI DS) Göttingen, and Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics, Faculty of Physics, University of Göttingen, Am Fassberg 17, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Theo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Geisel
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI DS) Göttingen, and Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics, Faculty of Physics, University of Göttingen, Am Fassberg 17, 37077 Göttingen, Germany and Computational Physics, IfB, ETH Zurich, Wolfgang-Pauli-Strasse 27, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nagler
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D059001:Aquatic Organisms; D044822:Biodiversity; D053476:Extinction, Biological; D008954:Models, Biological; D010163:Paleontology