The Case for a Gaian Bottleneck: The Biology of Habitability
Abstract
The prerequisites and ingredients for life seem to be abundantly available in the Universe. However, the Universe does not seem to be teeming with life. The most common explanation for this is a low probability for the emergence of life (an emergence bottleneck), notionally due to the intricacies of the molecular recipe. Here, we present an alternative Gaian bottleneck explanation: If life emerges on a planet, it only rarely evolves quickly enough to regulate greenhouse gases and albedo, thereby maintaining surface temperatures compatible with liquid water and habitability. Such a Gaian bottleneck suggests that (i) extinction is the cosmic default for most life that has ever emerged on the surfaces of wet rocky planets in the Universe and (ii) rocky planets need to be inhabited to remain habitable. In the Gaian bottleneck model, the maintenance of planetary habitability is a property more associated with an unusually rapid evolution of biological regulation of surface volatiles than with the luminosity and distance to the host star.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
These effects and other factors could greatly diminish the likelihood of development of multicellular complex life.
“These effects as well as other factors (including biological and chemical bottlenecks, asteroid bombardments, among others), as recently discussed by Chopra & Lineweaver (2016) and references therein, could greatly diminish the likelihood of development of multicellular complex life.”
From ABOUT EXOBIOLOGY: THE CASE FOR DWARF K STARS (2016) · cites this paper as Chopra & Lineweaver (2016)
Cites
A Neoproterozoic Snowball Earth
Hoffman, P. F., Kaufman, A. J., Halverson, G. P., & Schrag, D. P. (1998) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.281.5381.1342 · Cited by 2,693 · see citing works
Habitable Zones around Main Sequence Stars
Kasting, J. F., Whitmire, D. P., & Reynolds, R. T. (1993) · Icarus · doi:10.1006/icar.1993.1010 · Cited by 2,501 · see citing works
A negative feedback mechanism for the long‐term stabilization of Earth's surface temperature
Walker, J. C. G., Hays, P. B., & Kasting, J. F. (1981) · Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans · doi:10.1029/jc086ic10p09776 · Cited by 2,310 · see citing works
HABITABLE ZONES AROUND MAIN-SEQUENCE STARS: NEW ESTIMATES
Kopparapu, R. K., Ramirez, R., Kasting, J. F., Eymet, V., Robinson, T. D., Mahadevan, S., Terrien, R. C., Domagal-Goldman, S., Meadows, V., & Deshpande, R. (2013) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/765/2/131 · Cited by 1,615 · see citing works
Source regions and timescales for the delivery of water to the Earth
Morbidelli, A., Chambers, J., Lunine, J. I., Petit, J. M., Robert, F., Valsecchi, G. B., & Cyr, K. E. (2000) · Meteoritics & Planetary Science · doi:10.1111/j.1945-5100.2000.tb01518.x · Cited by 881 · cited 1× · see citing works
“…that Mars and Venus both started out, like Earth, hot from accretional energy and impacts and wet from impacts of large hydrous (5– 20% water) asteroids from the outer asteroid belt (Morbidelli et al. , 2000, 2012) and other ‘‘wet’’ accretionary material (Drake and Righter, 2002; Drake, 2005).”
Runaway and moist greenhouse atmospheres and the evolution of Earth and Venus
Kasting, J. F. (1988) · Icarus · doi:10.1016/0019-1035(88)90116-9 · Cited by 709 · cited 1× · see citing works
“However, atmospheric evolution of these planets diverged significantly (Kasting, 1988; Kulikov et al. , 2007; Driscoll and Bercovici, 2013).”
Linked magma ocean solidification and atmospheric growth for Earth and Mars
Elkins-Tanton, L. T. (2008) · Earth and Planetary Science Letters · doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2008.03.062 · Cited by 589 · see citing works
Annihilation of ecosystems by large asteroid impacts on the early Earth
Sleep, N. H., Zahnle, K. J., Kasting, J. F., & Morowitz, H. J. (1989) · Nature · doi:10.1038/342139a0 · Cited by 574 · see citing works
Kopp, R. E., Kirschvink, J. L., Hilburn, I. A., & Nash, C. Z. (2005) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.0504878102 · Cited by 565 · see citing works
Biogenic Methane, Hydrogen Escape, and the Irreversible Oxidation of Early Earth
Catling, D. C., Zahnle, K. J., & McKay, C. P. (2001) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1061976 · Cited by 507 · see citing works
Emergence of modern continental crust about 3 billion years ago
Dhuime, B., Wuestefeld, A., & Hawkesworth, C. J. (2015) · Nature Geoscience · doi:10.1038/ngeo2466 · Cited by 454 · see citing works
The Early Faint Sun Paradox: Organic Shielding of Ultraviolet-Labile Greenhouse Gases
Sagan, C., & Chyba, C. (1997) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.276.5316.1217 · Cited by 396 · see citing works
Feulner, G. (2012) · Reviews of Geophysics · doi:10.1029/2011rg000375 · Cited by 338 · see citing works
On the possibility of chemosynthetic ecosystems in subsurface habitats on Mars
Boston, P. J., Ivanov, M. V., & P. McKay, C. (1992) · Icarus · doi:10.1016/0019-1035(92)90045-9 · Cited by 325 · cited 2× · see citing works
“Even in the future when the remote detection of biosignatures is possible, it will be difficult to detect subsurface life (Boston et al., 1992; Gaidos et al., 1999; Jones et al., 2011; McMahon et al., 2013) that does not interact with the planet’s atmosphere and is completely sustained by free energy based on geochemi…”
Habitable Zone Limits for Dry Planets
Abe, Y., Abe-Ouchi, A., Sleep, N. H., & Zahnle, K. J. (2011) · Astrobiology · doi:10.1089/ast.2010.0545 · Cited by 298 · see citing works
Widespread mixing and burial of Earth’s Hadean crust by asteroid impacts
Marchi, S., Bottke, W. F., Elkins-Tanton, L. T., Bierhaus, M., Wuennemann, K., Morbidelli, A., & Kring, D. A. (2014) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature13539 · Cited by 277 · see citing works
Microbial habitability of the Hadean Earth during the late heavy bombardment
Abramov, O., & Mojzsis, S. J. (2009) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature08015 · Cited by 269 · see citing works
No climate paradox under the faint early Sun
Rosing, M. T., Bird, D. K., Sleep, N. H., & Bjerrum, C. J. (2010) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature08955 · Cited by 258 · see citing works
Johnson, B., & Goldblatt, C. (2015) · Earth-Science Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2015.05.006 · Cited by 224 · see citing works
Sousa, F. L., & Martin, W. F. (2014) · Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Bioenergetics · doi:10.1016/j.bbabio.2014.02.001 · Cited by 100 · see citing works
Clouds and the Faint Young Sun Paradox
Goldblatt, C., & Zahnle, K. J. (2011) · Climate of the Past · doi:10.5194/cp-7-203-2011 · Cited by 71 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
ABOUT EXOBIOLOGY: THE CASE FOR DWARF K STARS
Cuntz, M., & Guinan, E. F. (2016) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.3847/0004-637x/827/1/79 · Cited by 77 · see citing works
“The lack of evidence of technologically advanced civilizations such as radio signals and other modes of one-way communication are referred to as the Fermi’s Paradox, which continues to remain unresolved (see Chopra & Lineweaver 2016).”
BackgroundInfluentialHarrison, T. M. (2020) · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-46687-9 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
- Authors
- Chopra, A., & Lineweaver, C. H.
- Affiliations
- Australian National University (AU)
- Venue
- Astrobiology
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2016-01
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 7-22
- ISSN
- 1531-1074 (ISSN-L)
- 1557-8070
- OpenAlex
- W2267142438
- Cited by
- 115
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 28 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 5
- FWCI
- 5.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Astrobiology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ANU Open Research (Australian National University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Australian National University
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Astronomy and Astrophysics › Origins and Evolution of Life
- Keywords
- habitability, surface temperature, liquid water, extinction, evolution of life, origin of life
- MeSH terms
- Carbonates, Extraterrestrial Environment, Models, Theoretical, Time Factors, Water, Planets, Silicates, Exobiology, Extinction, Biological
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
