Senior Project Advisor

Peterson, Merrill A., 1965-

Document Type

Project

Publication Date

Spring 2020

Keywords

hyperoxia, hypoxia, entomology, paleontology, experimental paleoentomology

Abstract

Insects provide powerful examples of the responses of organisms to environmental change. For example, insect body size gives us insight into the consequences of climate change due to shifts in atmospheric composition, both in the present and in the past. Indeed, one common hypothesis behind the enormous sizes of insects during the late Carboniferous to early Permian (323.2 to 265.0 million years ago) is that such sizes were enabled by elevated oxygen levels (hyperoxia) during the Permo-Carboniferous, when atmospheric oxygen was as high as 60% greater than its present-day concentration. To examine whether the giant body sizes of insects were solely a response to a high partial pressure of oxygen, I assess the strengths and weaknesses of studies to date and address the need for further research that would allow for more robust tests of this hypothesis. Conclusions from the growing body of literature on geomagnetic polarity reversal, insect physiology, paleoecology, paleoclimatology, and paleoentomology suggest that even present-day oxygen levels might have been enough to induce gigantism, but can no longer, due to more recent selection against large insects that has limited their maximum body sizes since the Permo-Carboniferous. Additionally, more definitive studies on long-term evolutionary changes of insect size in high oxygen levels are needed before the question of whether high oxygen levels drive insect gigantism can be adequately answered.

Department

Biology

Subjects - Topical (LCSH)

Paleoentomology; Paleontology--Carboniferous; Insect--Size; Oxygen--Physiological effect

Genre/Form

student projects; term papers

Type

Text

Rights

Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.

Language

English

Format

application/pdf

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