Data from: Regional and environmental variation in escalatory ecological trends during the Jurassic: a western Tethys hotspot for escalation?

Understanding the drivers of macroevolutionary trends through the
Phanerozoic has been a central question in paleobiology. Increasingly
important is understanding the regional and environmental variation of
macroevolutionary patterns and how they are reflected at the global scale.
Here we test the role of biotic interactions on regional ecological
patterns during the Mesozoic marine revolution. We test for escalatory
trends in Jurassic marine benthic macroinvertebrate ecosystems using
occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database parsed by region and
environment. The escalation hypothesis posits that taxonomic groups that
could adapt to intense predation and bioturbation proliferated, whereas
groups unable to adapt were reduced in diversity and abundance or driven
to extinction. We tested this hypothesis in five regions during Jurassic
stages and among four depositional environments in Europe. Few escalatory
trends were detected, although at least one escalatory trend was observed
in every region, with the greatest number and strongest trends observed in
Europe. These trends include increases in shallow infauna and cementing
epifauna and occurrences of facultatively mobile invertebrates and
decreases in pedunculate, free-lying, and sessile epifauna. Within Europe,
escalatory trends occur in shallow-water environments but also in
deeper-water environments, where they are predicted not to occur. When
regional trends are aggregated, trends in Europe drive the global signal.
The results of this study suggest that while evidence of escalation is
rare globally, it is plausible that escalation drove macroevolutionary
patterns in Europe. Furthermore, these results underline the need to
dissect global fossil data at the regional scale to understand global
macroevolutionary dynamics.