Browse

The microscopic examination of fossilized bone tissue is a sophisticated and increasingly important analytical tool for understanding the life history of ancient organisms. This book provides an essential primer and manual for using fossil bone histology to investigate the biology of extinct tetrapods. Twelve experts summarize advances in the field over the past three decades, reviewing fundamental basics of bone microanatomy and physiology. Research specimen selection, thin-section preparation, and data analysis are addressed in detail. The authors also outline methods and issues in bone growth rate calculation and chronological age determination, as well as examining broader questions of behavior, ecology, and evolution by studying the microstructure of bone.

This book is devoted to the late Cenozoic (Neogene) mammalian biostratigraphy and geochronology of Asia. It employs cutting-edge biostratigraphic and geochemical dating methods to map the emergence of mammals across the continent. Written by specialists working in a variety of Asian regions, it uses data from fossil records to establish a geochronological framework for the evolution of land mammals. It shows how Asia's violent tectonic history has resulted in some of the world's most varied topography, and shows how the region's high mountain ranges and intense monsoon climates have spawned widely diverse environments over time. It describes how these geologic conditions profoundly influenced the evolution of Asian mammals and their migration into Europe, Africa, and North America. The book focuses on new fossil finds that have redefined Asia's role in mammalian evolution, and synthesizes information from a range of field studies on Asian mammals and biostratigraphy. In this way, it traces the histories and movements of extinct and extant mammals from various major groups and all northern continents, and provides geologists with a richer understanding of a variety of Asian terrains.

Paleontology has long had a troubled relationship with evolutionary biology. Suffering from a reputation as a second-tier science and conjuring images of fossil collectors and amateurs who dig up bones, it was marginalized even by Darwin himself, who worried that incompleteness in the fossil record would be used against his theory of evolution. But with the establishment of the modern synthesis in the 1940s and the pioneering work of George Gaylord Simpson, Ernst Mayr, and Theodosius Dobzhansky, as well as the subsequent efforts of Stephen Jay Gould, David Raup, and James Valentine, paleontology became embedded in biology and emerged as paleobiology, a first-rate discipline central to evolutionary studies. This incredible ascendance of this once-maligned science to the vanguard of a field is chronicled in this book. Chapters here aim to capture the excitement of the seismic changes in the discipline.

Although fossils have provided some of the most important evidence for evolution, the discipline of paleontology has not always had a central place in evolutionary biology. Beginning in Darwin's day, and for much of the twentieth century, paleontologists were often regarded as mere fossil collectors by many evolutionary biologists, their attempts to contribute to evolutionary theory ignored or regarded with scorn. In the 1950s, however, paleontologists began mounting a counter-movement that insisted on the valid, important, and original contribution of paleontology to evolutionary theory. This movement, called “paleobiology” by its proponents, advocated for an approach to the fossil record that was theoretical, quantitative, and oriented towards explaining the broad patterns of evolution and extinction in the history of life. This book provides, as never before, a historical account of the origin, rise, and importance of paleobiology, from the mid-nineteenth century to the late 1980s. Drawing on a wealth of archival material, this book shows how the movement was conceived and promoted by a small but influential group of paleontologists—including Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, among others—and examines the intellectual, disciplinary, and political dynamics involved in the ascendency of paleobiology. By emphasizing the close relationship between paleobiology and other evolutionary disciplines, this book aims to write a new chapter in the history of evolutionary biology, while also offering insights into the dynamics of disciplinary change in modern science.

The nature and concept of "species" are central to paleontology, yet the resurgence of interest in species in evolutionary biology over the past few decades has had surprisingly little impact on how paleontologists think about species. Indeed, paleontological thinking about "species" is distractingly diverse. Are species real or not? Recognizable or not? How, if at all, are species based on fossils comparable to species based on modern organisms? The answers to all of these questions are diverse. Both questions and answers are especially important, however, given the theoretical role of species in modern paleobiology and macroevolution. This book aims to both summarize current paleontological thinking about species, and encourage additional explicit consideration about them.

This book focuses on the interpretation of the fossil record that has been exemplified by the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) controversy, and it has been repeated countless times across a wide array of paleontological studies on macroevolutionary patterns, morphological evolution, community ecology, and biostratigraphy. Stratigraphic paleobiology holds that any interpretation of the fossil record must be based on a modern understanding of the principles of sediment accumulation. It is defined as the intersection of sequence and event stratigraphy with paleobiology. This book addresses the nature and architecture of the stratigraphic record and how environmental gradients determine the distribution of species. A numerical model is developed that predicts many features of the fossil record arising as a result of stratigraphic architecture. Bases for understanding how the ecology and morphology of individual taxa change through time in a stratigraphic context are also provided in this book. The topics covered in this book apply for both marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and across invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants.

The invasion of land by ocean-dwelling plants and animals was one of the most revolutionary events in the evolution of life on Earth, yet the animal invasion almost failed—twice—because of the twin mass extinctions of the Late Devonian Epoch. Some 359 to 375 million years ago, these catastrophic events dealt our ancestors a blow that almost drove them back into the sea. If those extinctions had been just a bit more severe, spiders and insects—instead of vertebrates—might have become the ecologically dominant forms of animal life on land. This book examines the profound evolutionary consequences of the Late Devonian extinctions and the various theories proposed to explain their occurrence. Only one group of four-limbed vertebrates exists on Earth, while other tetrapod-like fishes are extinct. This gap is why the idea of “fish with feet” seems so peculiar to us, yet such animals were once a vital part of our world, and if the Devonian extinctions had not happened, members of these species, like the famous Acanthostega and Ichthyostega, might have continued to live in our rivers and lakes. Synthesizing research and a wealth of new discoveries, this book explores the causes of the Devonian extinctions, the reasons vertebrates were so severely affected, and the potential evolution of the modern world if the extinctions had never taken place.