Drivers of marine ecosystem change during the end - Triassic mass extinction and recovery

Mass extinctions are critical turning points in the history of life and those that occurred during episodes of sudden climate warming record a similar suite of co-occurring, interlinked environmental changes (Jaraula et al., 2013). A key challenge is to determine which of these factors were most important in driving specific aspects of extinction, recovery and ecological change in marine ecosystems (Danise et al., 2015). One of the most important such crises occurred at the end of the Triassic Period (~201.5 Ma) and was driven by catastrophic release of greenhouse gases during emplacement of the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) (Kasprak et al., 2015). Although a number of studies have separately investigated global changes in the biosphere and geosphere during this event, a detailed understanding of how marine ecosystems responded to climate-related abiotic changes during the extinction, its aftermath and subsequent recovery is lacking.