Darkness and body size shaped end-Cretaceous marine extinction patterns

Ying, Rui, Monteiro, Fanny M., Witts, James D. and Schmidt, Daniela N. (2026) Darkness and body size shaped end-Cretaceous marine extinction patterns. Nature. ISSN 0028-0836

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Abstract

The Chicxulub asteroid impact at the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary (66 Ma) is thought to have caused the extinction of around 75% of species in the fossil record by triggering catastrophic environmental changes1. However, despite decades of research, the mechanisms linking the environmental changes to the selective extinction patterns observed in the marine fossil record remain unresolved. Here we use a global trait-based ecosystem model2,3 to establish this causality for the marine plankton community beyond the fossilized groups. Our model simulates diversity dynamics during the initial 100 years after the K–Pg boundary and represents explicitly extinction based on biomass thresholds that scales with body size. Under K–Pg climatic forcings, the model reproduces successfully key observed extinction patterns, including the high vulnerability of planktic foraminifera and other zooplankton, the survival of small mixotrophs4 and phytoplankton5,6, and potential for reduced diversity loss in high-latitude settings7. Our analysis suggests that impact-driven darkness and body-size-dependent extinction thresholds drove most of the observed extinction patterns. These results suggest that plankton ecologies enhance survival through differences in energy demand and acquisition. Our study bridges the gap between fossil evidence of extinction patterns and the K–Pg impact winter hypothesis, highlighting the value of trait-based models for understanding past biodiversity crises.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data Availability: The model outputs are available at Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17742290)70. The ForCenS data (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.873570) were used to validate modern foraminifera trait distribution. Code availability: The model source code is available at https://github.com/ruiying-ocean/cgenie.muffin/tree/rui_kpg. The specific configuration can be found at https://github.com/ruiying-ocean/cgenie.muffin/tree/rui_kpg/genie-userconfigs/PUBS/submitted/Ying_et_al.Nature.2025. The documentation of how to install and compile the model can be found at https://github.com/derpycode/muffindoc and https://github.com/ruiying-ocean/install.cgenie. Scripts and data for reproducing figures are available at https://github.com/ruiying-ocean/kpg_selectivity. A open-source python package cgeniepy71 is available for analysing model outputs.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 14 - life below water ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/life_below_water
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	01 Jun 2026 10:56
Last Modified:	01 Jun 2026 10:56
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/103214
DOI:	10.1038/s41586-026-10541-4

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