Gradual Collapse of Global Marine Ecosystem in the Late Permian and Its Link to the Anoxia
He Weihong
Wu Youyou
Zhang Kexin
Suzuki Noritoshi
Xiao Yifan
Yang Tinglu
Wu Chen
Huang Yafei
Abstract：The duration for the End-Permian mass extinction has been estimated as about 30 to 60 kyr.However,an ever-expanding body of papers has revealed that the evolution of Late Permian ecosystems possibly involved some yet under-studied'early warning signals'prior to the End-Permian mass extinction.The study on the pre-extinction'warning signals'is still limited.In order to understand the process of marine ecosystem collapse specifically the'early warning signals'pointing to the approaching of a global ecosystem regime shift(tipping point),30 marine Permian-Triassic Boundary sections from different palaeogeographic settings were selected globally to investigate the spatiotemporal biodiversity changes of different taxa and the spatiotemporal redox conditions.The results reveal that:(1)The marine ecosystem collapsed first in deep waters and then in shallow waters(first in offshore pelagic settings,then in moderately deep waters and deep-water basins and shelves and finally in shallow water environments);(2)in the same environments(in deep or moderately deep waters),a similar differential temporal pattern is also apparent in that the planktonic ecosystems were devastated earlier than benthic ecosystems.To account for the spatiotemporal and ecological(taxonomic)differences in extinction timing,we propose that the formation and expansion of an OMZ(oxygen minimum zone)and the related anoxia(or oxygen depletion),were most likely responsible for the differential temporal patterns of marine ecosystem collapses between deep and shallow waters,and between planktonic and benthic communities during the Late Permian.
Keywords：collapse of marine ecosystemoxygen minimum zoneanoxiaLate Permianstratigraphyenvironmental impact
Publication Date：2025-03-14
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：17( 983-999 )