Data from: Carbonate shelf development and early Paleozoic benthic diversity in Baltica: A hierarchical diversity partitioning approach using brachiopod data

The Ordovician–Silurian (~485–419 Ma) was a time of considerable
evolutionary upheaval, encompassing both the largest evolutionary
diversification and one of the first major mass extinctions. The
Ordovician diversification coincided with global climatic cooling and
paleocontinental collision, the ecological impacts of which were mediated
by region-specific processes including substrate changes, biotic
invasions, and tectonic movements. From the Sandbian–Katian (~453 Ma)
onward, an extensive carbonate shelf developed in the eastern Baltic
paleobasin in response to a tectonic shift to tropical latitudes and an
increase in the abundance of calcareous macroorganisms. We quantify the
contributions of environmental differentiation and temporal turnover to
regional diversity through the Ordovician and Silurian, using brachiopod
occurrences from the more shallow-water facies belts of the eastern Baltic
paleobasin, an epicontinental sea on the Baltica paleocontinent. The
results are consistent with carbonate shelf development as a driver of
Ordovician regional diversification, both by enhancing broadscale
differentiation between shallow- and deep-marine environments and by
generating heterogeneous carbonate environments that allowed increasing
numbers of brachiopod genera to coexist. However, temporal turnover also
contributed significantly to apparent regional diversity, particularly in
the Middle–Late Ordovician.