Northward shift in faunal diversity is a general pattern of evolution of the Phanerozoic marine biota

The analysis of two global databases on spatio-temporal distribution of fossil marine animal genera (Sepkoski's compendium and The Paleobiology Database) has revealed the presence of the latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) in the marine realm throughout the Phanerozoic. Within each time interval, LDG is characterized by two parameters: the latitudinal position of peak diversity and the steepness of monotonous decline of diversity with increasing distance from the zone of the highest diversity. During the Phanerozoic, peak diversity has drifted gradually from the tropics and subtropics of the Southern hemisphere into northern midlatitudes. The shift in peak diversity is not likely to be an artifact of incompleteness of the fossil record or uneven sampling of different regions. The shift proceeded in a stepwise manner, with periods of relatively fast changes separated by longer periods of little or no change. The latitudinal shift in peak diversity was probably due to a combination of several causes: tectonic (northward shift in the latitudinal distribution of continental shelf area), climatic (as demonstrated by the fact that peak diversity tended to occur near equator during the cold epochs and in midlatitudes during the warm epochs), and historical ("evolutionary inertia" of local faunas).