Marine biodiversity in the Coral Triangle is several times higher than anywhere else, but why this is true is unknown because of poor historical data. To address this, we compared the first available record of fossil cheilostome bryozoans from Indonesia with the previously sampled excellent record from the Caribbean. These two regions differ several-fold in species richness today, but cheilostome diversity was strikingly similar until the end of the Miocene 5.3 million years ago so that the modern disparity must have developed more recently. However, the Miocene faunas were ecologically very different, with a greater proportion of erect and free-living species in the Caribbean compared to the less well-known Coral Triangle. Our results support the hypothesis that modern differences in diversity arose primarily from differential extinction of Caribbean erect and free-living species concomitant with oceanographic changes due to the uplift of the Isthmus of Panama, rather than exceptional rates of diversification in the Indo-Pacific.

中文翻译：

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灭绝速度的差异推动了热带海洋生物多样性的现代生物地理格局。

珊瑚三角的海洋生物多样性比其他任何地方都高出好几倍，但为何如此呢？由于历史数据不佳，人们尚不清楚。为了解决这个问题，我们将印尼的化石螯虾化石腕虫的第一个可用记录与之前从加勒比海地区采集的优良记录进行了比较。如今，这两个地区的物种丰富度相差几倍，但在530万年前的中新世结束之前，化学成虫动物的种群多样性惊人地相似，因此现代差异必定在最近才出现。然而，中新世动物区系在生态学上有很大不同，与鲜为人知的珊瑚三角区相比，加勒比海地区的直立和自由生活物种比例更高。