Xu, Z.Yu, J.Yin, H.Merdith, A.S.Hilton, J.Allen, B.J.Gurung, K.Wignall, P.B.Dunhill, A.M.Shen, J.Schwartzman, D.Goddéris, Y.Donnadieu, Y.Wang, Y.Zhang, Y.Poulton, S.W.Mills, B.J.W.2025-07-102025-07-102025Nature Communications, 2025; 16(1):5400-1-5400-142041-17232041-1723https://hdl.handle.net/2440/145838Published online: 02 July 2025The Permian-Triassic Mass Extinction (PTME), the most severe crisis of the Phanerozoic, has been attributed to intense global warming triggered by Siberian Traps volcanism. However, it remains unclear why super-greenhouse conditions persisted for around five million years after the volcanic episode, with one possibility being that the slow recovery of plants limited carbon sequestration. Here we use fossil occurrences and lithological indicators of climate to reconstruct spatio-temporal maps of plant productivity changes through the PTME and employ climate-biogeochemical modelling to investigate the Early Triassic super-greenhouse. Our reconstructions show that terrestrial vegetation loss during the PTME, especially in tropical regions, resulted in an Earth system with low levels of organic carbon sequestration and restricted chemical weathering, resulting in prolonged high CO2 levels. These results support the idea that thresholds exist in the climate-carbon system whereby warming can be amplified by vegetation collapse.en© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/.Carbon SequestrationFossilsExtinction, BiologicalGlobal WarmingPlantsClimateCarbon DioxideCarbon SequestrationClimate ChangeJournal article10.1038/s41467-025-60396-y743993Merdith, A.S. [0000-0002-7564-8149]