A factor analytic description of the Phanerozoic marine fossil record

Data on numbers of marine families within 91 metazoan classes known from the Phanerozoic fossil record are analyzed. The distribution of the 2800 fossil families among the classes is very uneven, with most belonging to a small minority of classes. Similarly, the stratigraphic distribution of the classes is very uneven, with most first appearing early in the Paleozoic and with many of the smaller classes becoming extinct before the end of that era. However, despite this unevenness, a Q -mode factor analysis indicates that the structure of these data is rather simple. Only three factors are needed to account for more than 90% of the data. These factors are interpreted as reflecting the three great “evolutionary faunas” of the Phanerozoic marine record: a trilobite-dominated Cambrian fauna, a brachiopod-dominated later Paleozoic fauna, and a mollusc-dominated Mesozoic-Cenozoic, or “modern,” fauna. Lesser factors relate to slow taxonomic turnover within the major faunas through time and to unique aspects of particular taxa and times. Each of the three major faunas seems to have its own characteristic diversity so that its expansion or contraction appears as being intimately associated with a particular phase in the history of total marine diversity. The Cambrian fauna expands rapidly during the Early Cambrian radiations and maintains dominance during the Middle to Late Cambrian “equilibrium.” The Paleozoic fauna then ascends to dominance during the Ordovician radiations, which increase diversity dramatically; this new fauna then maintains dominance throughout the long interval of apparent equilibrium that lasts until the end of the Paleozoic Era. The modern fauna, which slowly increases in importance during the Paleozoic Era, quickly rises to dominance with the Late Permian extinctions and maintains that status during the general rise in diversity to the apparent maximum in the Neogene. The increase in diversity associated with the expansion of each new fauna appears to coincide with an approximately exponential decline of the previously dominant fauna, suggesting possible displacement of each evolutionary fauna by its successor.