Rainforest dieback due to a warming climate drove reptile evolution 300 million years ago.
ABC SCIENCE (AUSTRALIA): A dramatic climate change event which devastated Earth’s rainforests just under 300 million years ago also opened the way for the rise of the reptiles, a new study shows.
“We can conclude that life is resilient to climate change, even the collapse of rainforests”, he says, “but not without devastating loss of diversity and a change in the direction of evolution.
“If rainforests were to collapse today, life on Earth would never be the same again. But given sufficient time, new forms would evolve in the new environment that followed What might replace it is uncertain.”
