2003/05/15 by David Jablonski, Kaustuv Roy, James W. Valentine +2 · 4 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Marine Biology and Ecology Research #Cephalopods and Marine Biology #Marine and fisheries research
paper · doi:10.1126/science.1083246
openalex publication_date 2003/05/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Up to 50% of the increase in marine animal biodiversity through the Cenozoic at the genus level has been attributed to a sampling bias termed "the Pull of the Recent," the extension of stratigraphic ranges of fossil taxa by the relatively complete sampling of the Recent biota. However, 906 of 958 living genera and subgenera of bivalve mollusks having a fossil record occur in the Pliocene or Pleistocene. The Pull of the Recent thus accounts for only 5% of the Cenozoic increase in bivalve diversity, a major component of the marine record, suggesting that the diversity increase is likely to be a genuine biological pattern.