Environmental changes, co-extinction, and patterns in the fossil record

摘要

We introduce a new model for large scale evolution and extinction in whichspecies are organized into food chains. The system evolves by two processes:origination/speciation and extinction. In the model, extinction of a givenspecies can be due to an externally induced change in the environment or due tothe extinction of all preys of that species (co-extinction). The model is ableto reproduce the empirical observations, such as the statistical fractality ofthe fossil record or the scale-free distribution of extinction events, withoutinvoking extinctions due to competition between species.