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Dryad

Global factors constrain body size trends across the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event at a regional scale: a case study from the Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma

Data files

Jul 07, 2025 version files 6.93 MB

Abstract

The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) records a global increase in marine biodiversity which reached maximum diversification rates during the Middle Ordovician. The degree to which the drivers of the GOBE are regional or global is a question which must be addressed through analysis of regional data. In this study, stratigraphically constrained field-based data from the Middle Ordovician Simpson Group of Oklahoma were collected to identify temporal trends in body volume and determine whether body volume trends are more closely associated regional or global environmental and diversity changes. Volume increase was primarily associated with global-scale factors such as age, δ18O (temperature), 87Sr/86Sr (tectonics), and taxonomic diversity trends; whereas local-scale factors of Δ13C (carbon cycle) and lithologic trends were more weakly associated with local volume trends. Notably, all factors had a non-zero influence over brachiopod volume, indicating that local diversification was driven by multifaceted interactions among abiotic and biotic controls. These results support the argument that Ordovician diversification included a substantial biotic shift during the Middle Ordovician and support the hypothesis that global factors were dominant influencing diversification patterns during the main phase of the GOBE.

This dataset includes stratigraphic columns, ltihology, shell measurements, and isotopic data used in the analysis.