1 Recovery of benthic communities following the 2 Toarcian oceanic anoxic event in the Cleveland Basin, 3 UK 4 5 Bryony A. Caswella, b* and Stephanie J. Dawnc 6 7 Affiliations: aEnvironmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Gold Coast 8 Campus, Parklands Drive, Queensland 4222, Australia; bDepartment of Geography, Geology 9 and Environment, University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX, UK; cSchool of Environmental Sciences, 10 University of Liverpool, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, L69 3GP, United Kingdom. 11 *Corresponding author:
[email protected]; Tel: +61755529189 12 13 Word count = 7828 14 Figure captions = 777 15 References = 3866 16 Figures = 5 (plus 2 supplementary) 17 Tables = 3 (plus 3 supplementary) 18 19 Abstract 20 During the Toarcian oceanic anoxic event (OAE) considerable environmental 21 changes occurred that were associated with global warming, perturbations to the C- 22 cycle and ocean deoxygenation which resulted in a mass extinction of marine fauna. 23 Recovery of the biota after the event was protracted and has to date undergone 24 limited study. However, understanding the patterns and processes of recovery are 25 critical to anticipating ecosystem responses to the environmental changes predicted 26 for the near future. Results showed that increases in benthic diversity, and the re- 27 establishment of the Toarcian infauna was gradual and followed the changing redox 28 conditions. Pioneering infauna, such as Dacryomya ovum that dominated the 1 ©2020, Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 29 seafloor after the event in the Cleveland Basin, Yorkshire, UK, can modify the 30 physico-chemical environment and thus facilitate ecological succession after 31 disturbance.