Recent renewed interest in using fossil data to understand how biotic interactions have shaped the evolution of life is challenging the widely held assumption that long-term climate changes are the primary drivers of biodiversity change. New approaches go beyond traditional richness and co-occurrence studies to explicitly model biotic interactions using data on fossil and modern biodiversity. Important developments in three primary areas of research include analysis of (i) macroevolutionary rates, (ii) the impacts of and recovery from extinction events, and (iii) how humans (Homo sapiens) affected interactions among non-human species. We present multiple lines of evidence for an important and measurable role of biotic interactions in shaping the evolution of communities and lineages on long timescales.

最近对使用化石数据了解生物相互作用如何影响生命进化的新兴趣，正在挑战人们普遍认为的长期气候变化是生物多样性变化的主要驱动力。新方法超越了传统的丰富性和共现性研究，可以使用化石和现代生物多样性数据明确地模拟生物相互作用。在三个主要研究领域中的重要进展包括对（i）宏观进化速率的分析，（ii）灭绝事件的影响和从中的恢复以及（iii）人类（智人）如何影响非人类物种之间的相互作用的分析。我们提出了多种证据，证明了生物相互作用在长时期内对塑造社区和宗族进化的重要和可衡量的作用。