Brachiopod Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing Climate

A special issue of Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Diversity".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2027 | Viewed by 711

Editors

Department of Marine Animal Conservation and Public Engagement, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Naples, Italy
Interests: biogeography; database analysis; paleontology; earth sciences; brachiopoda

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Guest Editor
Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, China
Interests: orvician and silurian brachiopods; stratigraphy; related fields

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Brachiopods, with a fossil record stretching back to 500 million years ago, are among the most informative and enduring clades in the marine ecosystem. Their remarkable preservation, diverse morphologies, and ecological persistence across mass extinctions and major climatic shifts make them powerful archives for studying the interplay between biodiversity, ecology, and environmental change. As living representatives of a lineage that has survived profound planetary transformations, brachiopods offer rare opportunities to link deep-time evolutionary patterns with present-day biological processes.

In this Special Issue, we invite studies that use brachiopods to illuminate the biological and ecological mechanisms shaping marine biodiversity—past, present, and future. Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following: macroevolutionary dynamics, taxonomic richness, functional diversity, paleoecology, biogeography, resilience and adaptation to stress, and conservation paleobiology informed by the fossil record. Contributions drawing on fossil and modern datasets, museum collections, field and experimental studies, or integrative modeling approaches are particularly encouraged.

By combining insights from fossil and living brachiopods, this Special Issue seeks to deepen our understanding of marine biodiversity dynamics and inform strategies for conserving vulnerable taxa in a rapidly changing world.

Dr. Facheng Ye
Prof. Dr. Renbin Zhan
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • brachiopoda
  • biodiversity dynamics
  • climate change
  • paleoecology and biogeography
  • macroevolution

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 4594 KB  
Article
Retreat, Resilience, and Reorganization: Decoding the Post-Paleozoic Evolution of Brachiopods
by Facheng Ye
Diversity 2026, 18(8), 476; https://doi.org/10.3390/d18080476 - 7 Aug 2026
Viewed by 274
Abstract
The Paleozoic–Modern Evolutionary Fauna transition is defined by the ecological replacement of brachiopods by bivalves. However, it remains debated whether post-Paleozoic brachiopods experienced a simple, continuous global decline or a complex macroevolutionary reorganization. Previous studies are often limited by ecological mismatches, uncorrected sampling [...] Read more.
The Paleozoic–Modern Evolutionary Fauna transition is defined by the ecological replacement of brachiopods by bivalves. However, it remains debated whether post-Paleozoic brachiopods experienced a simple, continuous global decline or a complex macroevolutionary reorganization. Previous studies are often limited by ecological mismatches, uncorrected sampling biases, and single taxonomic scales. To resolve this, this study presents a high-resolution analysis of brachiopod evolution from the Triassic to the Quaternary. Using Paleobiology and Geobiodiversity Database records, I applied coverage-based standardization and, for guild-level comparisons, strict ecological filtering, comparing brachiopods only to ecologically equivalent bivalves and echinoderms. Results reveal three major patterns. First, regional and global diversity decoupled: global diversity showed Mesozoic diversification pulses, whereas the Chinese record exhibited a sustained post-Triassic collapse, showing global aggregates mask regional extirpations. Second, brachiopods displayed strong hierarchical resilience: environmental crises drastically pruned species richness (causing generic monotypy), yet family-level diversity remained remarkably stable. Third, brachiopods underwent a macroecological reorganization, retreating from carbonate reefs and shifting poleward to establish their modern anti-tropical distribution. Ultimately, the post-Paleozoic history of brachiopods is not a passive decline, but a multi-dimensional reorganization driven by regional habitat loss, geographic redistribution, and deep-lineage survival. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Brachiopod Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing Climate)
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