Data from: Mass extinctions alter extinction and origination dynamics with respect to body size

Whether mass extinctions and their associated recoveries represent an
intensification of background extinction and origination dynamics versus a
separate macroevolutionary regime remains a central debate in evolutionary
biology. Previous focus has been on extinction, but origination dynamics
may be equally or more important for long-term evolutionary outcomes. The
evolution of animal body size is an ideal process to test for differences
in macroevolutionary regimes, as body size is easily determined,
comparable across distantly related taxa, and scales with organismal
traits. Here, we test for shifts in selectivity between background
intervals and the “Big Five” mass extinction events using
capture-mark-recapture models. Our body-size data cover 10,203 fossil
marine animal genera spanning 10 Linnaean classes with occurrences ranging
from Early Ordovician to Late Pleistocene (485–1 Mya). Most classes
exhibit differences in both origination and extinction selectivity between
background intervals and mass extinctions, with the direction of
selectivity varying among classes and overall exhibiting stronger
selectivity during origination after mass extinction than extinction
during mass extinction. Thus, not only do mass extinction events shift the
marine biosphere into a new macroevolutionary regime, the dynamics of
recovery from mass extinction also appear to play an underappreciated role
in shaping the biosphere in their aftermath.