by Staff Writers Chicago IL (SPX) Jul 06, 2012 A new study
indicates that mass extinctions affect the pace of evolution,
not just in the immediate aftermath of catastrophe, but for
millions of years to follow. The study's authors, University of
Chicago's Andrew Z. Krug and David Jablonski, will publish their
findings in the August issue of the journal Geology. Scientists
expected to see an evolutionary explosion immediately following
a mass extinction, but Krug and Jablonski's findings go far
beyond that. "There's some general sense that the event happens,
there's some aftermath and then things return to normal," said
Krug, a research scientist in geophysical sciences at UChicago.
But in reality, Krug said, "Things don't return to what they
were before. They operate at a different pace, sometimes more
rapidly, other times more slowly. Evolutionary rates shift, and
that shift is permanent until the next mass extinction." Krug
and Jablonski's suggestion that the potential for rapid
speciation and expansion of s