Mass extinction’s affect on size of organisms

A study from Stanford University reveals that mass extinction can do much more than wipe out organisms around the world.

After a mass extinction, during recovery periods, the newly evolved organisms tend to be smaller than the survivors of the event. This is the opposite of the usual trend of evolving from larger organisms, and is called the Lilliput Effect after the tiny people in Gulliver’s Travels. Scientists believe this pattern may reflect environmental stressors such as low oxygen levels, limited food availability, or reduced competition.

According the article, understanding these patterns could help us predict the long term evolutionary consequences of today’s environment. With many environmental stressors on our ecosystems such as climate change, habitat loss, and human activity accelerate extinction rates if we know which traits are favored after extinction, we could anticipate which animals are most likely to thrive in the aftermath of today’s biodiversity crisis using fossils from the past.