Early and Middle Triassic trends in diversity, evenness, and size of foraminifers on a carbonate platform in south China: Implications for tempo and mode of biotic recovery from the end-Permian mass extinction

Delayed biotic recovery from the end-Permian mass extinction has long been interpreted to result from environmental inhibition. Recently, evidence of more rapid recovery has begun to emerge, suggesting the role of environmental inhibition was previously overestimated. However, there have been few high-resolution taxonomic and ecological studies spanning the full Early and Middle Triassic recovery interval, leaving the precise pattern of recovery and underlying mechanisms poorly constrained. In this study, we document Early and Middle Triassic trends in taxonomic diversity, assemblage evenness, and size distribution of benthic foraminifers on an exceptionally-exposed carbonate platform in south China. We observe gradual increases in all metrics through Early Triassic and earliest Middle Triassic time, with stable values reached early in the Anisian. There is little support in our dataset for a substantial Early Triassic lag interval during the recovery of foraminifers or for a step...