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An Overview Of Hypotheses And Supporting Evidence Regarding Drivers Of Insect Gigantism In The Permo-Carboniferous, Ryssa Parks
An Overview Of Hypotheses And Supporting Evidence Regarding Drivers Of Insect Gigantism In The Permo-Carboniferous, Ryssa Parks
WWU Honors College Senior Projects
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 …