Evolutionarily distinct “living fossils” require both lower speciation and lower extinction rates

As a label for a distinct category of life, ‘living fossil’ is controversial. The term has multiple definitions and it is unclear whether the label can be genuinely used to delimit biodiversity. Even taking a purely phylogenetic perspective where a proxy for the living fossil is evolutionary distinctness (ED), an inconsistency arises: does it refer to “dead-end” lineages doomed to extinction or “panchronic” lineages that survive through multiple epochs? Recent tree-growth model studies indicate that speciation rates must have been unequally distributed between species in the past to produce the shape of the tree of life. Although an uneven distribution of speciation rates may create the possibility for a distinct group of living fossil lineages, such a grouping could only be considered genuine if extinction rates also show a consistent pattern, be it indicative of dead-end or panchronic lineages. To determine whether extinction rates also show an unequal distribution, we developed a tre...