The high rate of species extinction in recent decades is seen by many ecolo
gists as heralding an extinction of catastrophic magnitude in the near futu
re. The ecological consequences of such a biodiversity crisis are hard to p
redict, but some indication of likely effects can be gained from the knowle
dge of mass extinctions in the past. The Late Ordovician extinction was one
of the five great extinctions in the geological record. It occurred in two
phases about 0.5-1 million years (Ma) apart and resulted from climatic and
related environmental changes associated with the rapid growth and decay o
f the large Gondwanan ice cap. Overall, an estimated 86% of species became
extinct, 61% of genera and 12-24% of families, but few or no orders or high
er taxa. The extinction severely affected both marine benthos and plankton.
Using brachiopod data as a measure of ecological change, it can be seen th
at the number of within-habitat species (alpha diversity) was severely redu
ced and the number and distinctness of benthic communities (beta diversity)
on marine shelves also declined sharply. Concurrently the number of palaeo
geographic provinces fell from ten to five, possibly as a result of a loss
of endemic species and preferential survival of cosmopolitan species. At th
e peak of extinction, following the second extinction phase, the ecological
structure of both benthic and planktonic ecosystems had been severely disr
upted and downgraded in complexity as a wide variety of niches were 'vacate
d'. In spite of the profound biodiversity and ecological crisis within this
'survival' interval, communities returned to their pre-extinction levels o
f alpha and beta diversity during the subsequent 'recovery' interval. In sp
ite of the large amount of vacant ecospace to be filled there was very litt
le innovation in terms of adaptive strategy, so that the structure of the e
merging Silurian communities was similar to that of the Ordovician. In thes
e terms the ecological recovery was remarkable, but it was also prolonged o
ver about 4-5 Ma. On a geological time scale the biosphere returned to 'nor
mal', but on a human time scale the mass extinction produced a very severel
y degraded biosphere. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.