The Ethic of Biodiversity

Observe how the Earth has supported life and its diversification. — Earthen Ethic №5

This is the ninth installment of the Earthen Ethic series that is laying out the framework for a new ecological ethics based on the Earth’s example. This week we go deep into the fifth principle — of diversification.

IN 1998, PALEONTOLOGIST Joseph Sepkoski completed a comprehensive database of marine life over the last 541 million years. The database compiled over 30,000 fossil genera, representing the finds and categorization of millions of species. By recording each genus’s appearance and disappearance in the fossil timeline, he was able to chart for how long each were active and when they died off. Sepkoski was particularly interested in showing the Earth’s great rises and falls in diversity — such as the explosion of life in the Carboniferous to the rise and fall of the dinosaurs. Indeed, his timeline of extinctions correlates directly with the dating of great meteors and volcanoes by geologists. However, just as important as showing declines in diversity, his curve rises — demonstrating a phenomenon far more fundamental. Over the history of the Earth the diversity of the biosphere has steadily increased.

i Mass Extinctions in the Marine Fossil Record, By DAVID M. RAUP, J. JOHN SEPKOSKI JR., Science19 Mar 1982 : 1501–1503

Our understanding of the Earth’s two billion year journey from a barren planet to the thriving biosphere of today is further informed by Sepkoski’s insights. The correlation…