ArticleScience advances2020
The dynamics of stem and crown groups.
Article in Science advances, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 34 papers.
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Who cites it
34 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Origin and Early Evolution of Fungi: Challenges, Inferences, and Principles.Annual review of cell and developmental biology · 2026Review
- On the origin of animals and placental mammals: a critique of literalist readings of the fossil record.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Integrated analysis of fossils and molecular divergence time estimates a latest Jurassic origin of angiosperms.Nature plants · 2026Article
- Evolutionary Tempo, Supertaxa, and Living Fossils.Systematic biology · 2025Article
- Two exceptionally preserved biotas from North Dakota reveal cryptic Ordovician shelf ecologies.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Early evolution of the stonefly lineage (Insecta, Plecoptera) revealed by a new diversity of Carboniferous stem-group species.BMC ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- A diverse Palaeoproterozoic microbial ecosystem implies early eukaryogenesis.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Evolutionary implications of a deep-time perspective on insect pollination.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Ediacaran origin and Ediacaran-Cambrian diversification of Metazoa.Science advances · 2024Article
- Two Notorious Nodes: A Critical Examination of Relaxed Molecular Clock Age Estimates of the Bilaterian Animals and Placental Mammals.Systematic biology · 2024Article
- Review
- Cryogenian Origins of Multicellularity in Archaeplastida.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Mesozoic evolution of cicadas and their origins of vocalization and root feeding.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Article
- Major Revisions in Pancrustacean Phylogeny and Evidence of Sensitivity to Taxon Sampling.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Review
- Cambrian origin but no early burst in functional disparity for Class Bivalvia.Biology letters · 2023Article
- Article
- The Cambrian cirratuliformProceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Causes and consequences of end-Ediacaran extinction: An update.Cambridge prisms. Extinction · 2023Review
- Reassessing a cryptic history of early trilobite evolution.Communications biology · 2022Review
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2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The fossil record of the origins of major groups such as animals and birds has generated considerable controversy, especially when it conflicts with timings based on molecular clock estimates. Here, we model the diversity of "stem" (basal) and "crown" (modern) members of groups using a "birth-death model," the results of which qualitatively match many large-scale patterns seen in the fossil record. Typically, the stem group diversifies rapidly until the crown group emerges, at which point its diversity collapses, followed shortly by its extinction. Mass extinctions can disturb this pattern and create long stem groups such as the dinosaurs. Crown groups are unlikely to emerge either cryptically or just before mass extinctions, in contradiction to popular hypotheses such as the "phylogenetic fuse". The patterns revealed provide an essential context for framing ecological and evolutionary explanations for how major groups originate, and strengthen our confidence in the reliability of the fossil record.
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