2022/04/06 by Jaakko Toivonen, Mikael Fortelius, Indrė Žliobaitė · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · Environmental Science · #Evolution and Paleontology Studies #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies
paper · doi:10.1098/rspb.2021.2294
openalex publication_date 2022/04/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A species factory refers to the source that gives rise to an exceptionally large number of species. However, what is it exactly: a place, a time or a combination of places, times and environmental conditions, remains unclear. Here we search for species factories computationally, for which we develop statistical approaches to detect origination, extinction and sorting hotspots in space and time in the fossil record. Using data on European Late Cenozoic mammals, we analyse where, how and how often species factories occur, and how they potentially relate to the dynamics of environmental conditions. We find that in the Early Miocene origination hotspots tend to be located in areas with relatively low estimated net primary productivity. Our pilot study shows that species first occurring in origination hotspots tend to have a longer average longevity and a larger geographical range than other species, thus emphasizing the evolutionary importance of the species factories.