Evolutionary Paleobiology

Front Cover
University of Chicago Press, 1996 M12 15 - 484 pages
Representing the state of the art in evolutionary paleobiology, this book provides a much-needed overview of this rapidly changing field. An influx of ideas and techniques both from other areas of biology and from within paleobiology itself have resulted in numerous recent advances, including increased recognition of the relationships between ecological and evolutionary theory, renewed vigor in the study of ecological communities over geologic timescales, increased understanding of biogeographical patterns, and new mathematical approaches to studying the form and structure of plants and animals.

Contributors to this volume—a veritable who's who of eminent researchers—present the results of original research and new theoretical developments, and provide directions for future studies. Individually wide ranging, these papers all share a debt to the work of James W. Valentine, one of the founders of modern evolutionary paleobiology. This volume's unified approach to the study of life on earth will be a major contribution to paleobiology, evolution, and ecology.


 

Contents

The Evolutionary History of Plasmodium
21
Hierarchies in Macroevolution
42
Models of Morphological Diversification
62
The Shifting Balance of Natural Communities?
89
Do Communities Evolve? A Major Question in Evolutionary
123
Reading the Chronicle of Quaternary Temperate Rocky Shore Faunas
161
On the Nonprevalence of Competitive Replacement in the Evolution
185
The Double Wedge Revisited
211
Thickness Trends in Marine Skeletal
290
Locomotion and Respiration in Aquatic AirBreathing Vertebrates
337
Muricid Gastropods as a Case Study
355
A Global Analysis
376
Extinction Survival
398
Extinction Models
419
An Unpublished Darwin
437
Copyright

Body Size and Macroevolution
256

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Page 460 - How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service' (Charles Darwin, 18th September 1861).

About the author (1996)

Douglas H. Erwin and Scott L. Wing are both research curators in the Smithsonian Institution's Department of Palebiology.

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