The genetic signature of (astronomically induced) life extinctions

Abstract

The current understanding of supernova and gamma-ray burst events suggests important effects on the biosphere if one of more of them happened to strike the earth in the past. In this paper we evaluate the possibility that life extinctions which probably occurred due to excess of radiation occurring in the geologic past might have left a genetic signature on surviving species. We emphasize the signatures of these extinctions, proposing a quantitative model to evaluate the surviving probability of the species, based on kinetic aspects of the frequency of mutations and the DNA repair rate.