Surprising findings: study suggests mass extinction events benefited life on Earth

In August 2024, a controversial new study ruffled feathers throughout the scientific community after its findings were made public. The researchers argued that mass extinction events were ultimately good for life on Earth. Let's take a look at what they discovered.

The Earth has suffered five mass extinction events in its history and is going through its sixth according to some researchers. However, a study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society suggested extinction events may actually be good for long-term life on the planet. 

The new study found that large-scale extinction events can be a boon to Gaian systems. If that sounded like a lot of gibberish, that’s okay, you need some important context. 

There are few ideas in science as contentious as the Gaia hypothesis, a theory that was first put forth by chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s as a way to explain how life on Earth affected the planet. 

In the Gaia hypothesis, the Earth is described as behaving like a self-perpetuating living organism according to the science magazine Eos. Earth’s Living organisms interact with the non-living Earth to maintain, and sometimes improve, the conditions of the planet. 

“It postulates that all living things have a regulatory effect on the Earth’s environment that promotes life overall; the Earth is homeostatic in support of life-sustaining conditions. The theory is highly controversial,” the Encyclopedia Brittanica explained. 

As the Encyclopedia Britannica noted, not everyone believes that the Gaia hypothesis is accurate. Some researchers have pointed out that large-scale perturbations, like climate change, can destroy the conditions needed for life or wipe it out completely. 

However, the latest research from University of Exeter professor Arwen Nicholson and his study coauthors Nathan Mayne and Rudy Arthur discovered possible world-ending problems could be the catalysts for something even bigger. 

Nicholson explained to Eos that the Earth behaves like a Gaia system and noted that in its history, large perturbations like the Great Oxidation Event 2.5 billion years ago led to a sharp rise in the planet’s oxygen levels, but it had a nasty side effect. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By André Karwath, Own Work, CC BY-SA 2.5

Most anaerobic life on Earth was killed off during the Great Oxidation Event. However, the situation ultimately set the stage for animals to evolve, taking life to a whole different level. It was this sort of thinking that prompted the new research. 

The researchers used computer modeling to simulate perturbations that lowered the Earth’s carrying capacity, running experiments with perturbations that varied in length, scale, and amount, only to discover something fascinating. 

Thousands of simulations showed that perturbed systems were more likely to end all life in the system, but in systems where life survived, they would end up enjoying a higher diversity of life and abundance of life that persisted for thousands of generations. 

“When you have a collapse, it gives the potential for something new to arise,” Nicholson explained. Study co-author Nathan Mayne noted: “The [systems] that survived through those events bounced back stronger.” 

Mayne made clear that the research was abstract and that it didn’t include all life on the planet. According to Eos, Mayne noted that the study was meant to reveal the general principles about how life on other worlds might play out. 

Why this research matters is simple. Eos noted that the results of the study could help scientists in their search for extraterrestrial life in the universe according to the study’s authors. But the research can also help us understand ourselves. 

“I’m really glad that people are trying to experimentally test some of the most profound questions about life itself,” University of Washington paleontologist Peter Ward said of the new study according to Eos.  

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