Many freshwater fish face a troubling future due to the ongoing biodiversity crisis, but international researchers affirm that their ancestors withstood surprisingly well the passage of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.
The team emphasises that it has been difficult to determine precisely how freshwater fish reacted to the asteroid, which marked the end of the Cretaceous period and caused a major upheaval in global biodiversity.
Analyzing fossil data and the genetic information of living species, the researchers explain that there is evidence that several branches of the fishes’ family tree underwent bursts of diversification after the asteroid’s passage.
However, they state that in cases where losses in diversity occurred, it took more than 100,000 years to recover, which may give us an indication of how long the current biodiversity crisis could affect fish populations in the future.
