Biodiversity dynamics and their driving factors during the Cretaceous diversification of Spatangoida (Echinoidea, Echinodermata)

Abstract Variations in recorded diversity over time present a scrambled signal that is modulated by a large number of variables: the potential of particular life forms to generate evolutionary innovations, external constraints induced by the environment in its broad sense, the heterogeneity of the fossil record and the analytical artefacts due to sampling bias. A key question is how to characterise and quantify the separate input of any given factor in the overall diversity signal. This paper explores the structure of diversity data for spatangoid heart urchins and the sensitivity of recorded diversity to different factors of analytical bias (length of geological periods, proportion of pala…