Dinosaurs were not declining before they hit the planet Earth

A new analysis by researchers at the University of Bath and the Museum of Natural History in London claims that dinosaurs declined before the impact of the giant planet leading to the extinction of most species on Earth. Researchers believe that if the planet had not been affected, dinosaurs would have continued to dominate Earth. At the time of the asteroid impact at the end of the late Cretaceous period, dinosaurs were widespread globally.

Before planetary influence, dinosaurs occupied every continent on the planet and were the predominant animal form for most terrestrial ecosystems. Despite their wide variety, palebiologists still argue that their diversity was declining as dinosaurs became extinct. Researchers Collected a set of trees belonging to different dinosaur families and used statistical modeling to assess whether each major dinosaur group was able to produce new species at that time.

The study found that dinosaurs did not decline before the planet’s influence, in contrast to some previous studies. The authors also suggest that if the effects had not occurred, dinosaurs would have become the dominant group of land animals on Earth. Researcher JB Bonser is the lead author of the study and says that past studies by others have used various methods to come to their conclusion that asteroids would not have been affected even if dinosaurs had died.

The new study has shown with extensive data that includes a wide range of family trees and dinosaur types with extensive data, the results do not pay attention to that conclusion. Bonser says about half the results indicate that dinosaurs were declining. The researchers used statistical methods to cross the bias of the sample by looking at the specification rates of dinosaur families rather than counting the number of species within a family.

The main point of the paper is that it is not as easy as looking at a few trees and making a decision. Bonser says there is a large and compelling bias in the fossil record, and the lack of information often shows a decline in species, but the decline may not reflect the reality of the time.