On previous EarthDates, we talked about the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs—and 75 percent of all species on Earth. But what survived? And how?

In the first years after impact, dust and aerosols blocked the sun’s light and heat, which slowed photosynthesis.

Plants died, along with most things that depended on them, as the food web collapsed.

Most types of plankton in surface ocean waters also died, and rained down through the water column, where bottom-dwelling scavenger species had a field day.

Large organisms with fast metabolisms and higher food needs starved, while some species of less than 50 lbs with slower metabolisms hung tough.

Specialized species suffered worst. Generalists that could more easily adapt fared better.

Early mammals and birds—avian dinosaurs—quickly began to fill the environmental niches left empty by extinct larger species.

Within 300,000 years, a blink of an eye in evolutionary terms, there were productive ecosystems across Earth.

Strangely, one of the places productivity recovered fastest was within the asteroid crater. Scientists are studying why.

It would be another 10 million years before evolution filled all empty environmental niches and the diversity of life equaled what it was before the impact.

The resulting mix looked very different than before and allowed the rise of mammals and birds and, eventually, humans.