Now, scientists at MIT and the University of Leicester have found that this connection between evolutionary adaptation and the pace of environmental change holds up at the global scale as well ' and can determine life's susceptibility to mass extinction. The researchers developed a theoretical model of this phenomenon, which they present in a paper appearing today in Physical Review Letters. The team compared the model with available data from past major mass extinctions, including how fast the global environment changed at the time of each event. The model successfully predicted the severity of most mass extinctions in Earth's history, or the fraction of life that was unable to adapt, and therefore went extinct. 'What we're beginning to see is a certain level of organization, and ways in which life behaves that are consistent with the ways in which the environment behaves,' says study author Daniel Rothman, professor of geophysics and co-director of the Lorenz Center at MIT. 'It...
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