› › The Evolutionary Biology Of Extinct And Extant Organisms

Macroevolution in Deep Time

Author : Rituparna Bose

Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media

Page : 69 pages

File Size : 33,44 MB

Release : 2013-01-26

Category : Science

ISBN : 1461464765

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Book Description

The prerequisite to investigating the underlying causes behind mass extinction is a profound understanding of the evolutionary history of both living and dead species. It is especially important to appreciate the significance of such studies in extinct organisms; especially in organisms that were abundant in a certain geologic era, but have subsequently dwindled or become extinct. Such studies should help to accurately evaluate patterns of evolution in extinct species lineages and help predict the same in its modern analogs. The book includes cutting edge research in evolutionary biology that should serve as a starting point for conservation. ​



The Evolutionary Biology of Extinct and Extant Organisms

Author : Subir Ranjan Kundu

Publisher : Academic Press

Page : 268 pages

File Size : 29,36 MB

Release : 2021-03-23

Category : Science

ISBN : 0128232838

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Book Description

The Evolutionary Biology of Extinct and Extant Organisms offers a thorough and detailed narration of the journey of biological evolution and its major transitional links to the biological world, which began with paleontological exploration of extinct organisms and now carries on with reviews of phylogenomic footprint reviews of extant, living fossils. This book moves through the defining evolutionary stepping stones starting with the evolutionary changes in prokaryotic, aquatic organisms over 4 billion years ago to the emergence of the modern human species in Earth’s Anthropocene. The book begins with an overview of the processes of evolutionary fitness, the epicenter of the principles of evolutionary biology. Whether through natural or experimental occurrence, evolutionary fitness has been found to be the cardinal instance of evolutionary links in an organism between its ancestral and contemporary states. The book then goes on to detail evolutionary trails and lineages of groups of organisms including mammalians, reptilians, and various fish. The final section of the book provides a look back at the evolutionary journey of "nonliving" or extinct organisms, versus the modern-day transition to "living" or extant organisms. The Evolutionary Biology of Extinct and Extant Organisms is the ideal resource for any researcher or advanced student in evolutionary studies, ranging from evolutionary biology to general life sciences. Provides an updated compendium of evolution research history Details the evolution trails of organisms, including mammals, reptiles, arthropods, annelids, mollusks, protozoa, and more Offers an accessible and easy-to-read presentation of complex, in-depth evolutionary biology facts and theories



Evolutionary Trends

Author : Ken McNamara

Publisher :

Page : 394 pages

File Size : 20,52 MB

Release : 1990

Category : Evolution

ISBN :

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Evolutionary Patterns

Author : Alan H. Cheetham

Publisher : University of Chicago Press

Page : 424 pages

File Size : 29,56 MB

Release : 2001-08

Category : Science

ISBN : 9780226389301

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Book Description

With all the recent advances in molecular and evolutionary biology, one could almost wonder why we need the fossil record. Molecular sequence data can resolve taxonomic relationships, experiments with fruit flies demonstrate evolution and development in real time, and field studies of Galapagos finches have provided the strongest evidence for natural selection ever measured in the wild. What, then, can fossils teach us that living organisms cannot? Evolutionary Patterns demonstrates the rich variety of clues to evolution that can be gleaned from the fossil record. Chief among these are the major trends and anomalies in species development revealed only by "deep time," such as periodic mass extinctions and species that remain unchanged in form for millions of years. Contributors explore modes of development, the tempo of speciation and extinction, and macroevolutionary patterns and trends. The result is an important contribution to paleobiology and evolutionary biology, and a spirited defense of the fossil record as a crucial tool for understanding evolution and development. The contributors are Ann F. Budd, Efstathia Bura, Leo W. Buss, Mike Foote, Jörn Geister, Stephen Jay Gould, Eckart Hâkansson, Jean-Georges Harmelin, Lee-Ann C. Hayek, Jeremy B. C. Jackson, Kenneth G. Johnson, Nancy Knowlton, Scott Lidgard, Frank K. McKinney, Daniel W. McShea, Ross H. Nehm, Beth Okamura, John M. Pandolfi, Paul D. Taylor, and Erik Thomsen.



Telling the Evolutionary Time

Author : Philip C J Donoghue

Publisher : CRC Press

Page : 374 pages

File Size : 17,94 MB

Release : 2003-12-16

Category : Nature

ISBN : 1134477295

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Book Description

Determining the precise timing for the evolutionary origin of groups of organisms has become increasingly important as scientists from diverse disciplines attempt to examine rates of anatomical or molecular evolution and correlate intrinsic biological events to extrinsic environmental events. Molecular clock analyses indicate that many major groups



Evolution of Island Mammals

Author : Alexandra van der Geer

Publisher : John Wiley & Sons

Page : 512 pages

File Size : 31,11 MB

Release : 2010-08-30

Category : Science

ISBN : 1405190094

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Book Description

Evolution on islands differs in a number of important ways from evolution on mainland areas. Over millions of years of isolation, exceptional and sometimes bizarre mammals evolved on islands, such as pig-sized elephants and hippos, giant rats and gorilla-sized lemurs that would have been formidable to their mainland ancestors. This timely and innovative book is the first to offer a much-needed synthesis of recent advances in the exciting field of the evolution and extinction of fossil insular placental mammals. It provides a comprehensive overview of current knowledge on fossil island mammals worldwide, ranging from the Oligocene to the onset of the Holocene. The book addresses evolutionary processes and key aspects of insular mammal biology, exemplified by a variety of fossil species. The authors discuss the human factor in past extinction events and loss of insular biodiversity. This accessible and richly illustrated textbook is written for graduate level students and professional researchers in evolutionary biology, palaeontology, biogeography, zoology, and ecology.



Extinction

Author : Michael Charles Boulter

Publisher : Columbia University Press

Page : 226 pages

File Size : 38,25 MB

Release : 2002

Category : Nature

ISBN : 0231128371

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Book Description

The head of the team analyzing Fossil Record 2, the largest database of information on extinct animals and plants, brings us a thoroughly researched introduction to the new developments in the science of life and a chilling account of the effects that humans have had on the planet based on his experience and research.



Evolution and Escalation

Author : Geerat J. Vermeij

Publisher : Princeton University Press

Page : 556 pages

File Size : 12,83 MB

Release : 1993-08-15

Category : Science

ISBN : 9780691000800

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Book Description

Here is one biologist's interpretation of the chronology of life during the last six hundred million years of earth history: an extended essay that draws on the author's own data and a wide-ranging literature survey to discuss the nature and dynamics of evolutionary change in organisms and their biological surroundings. Geerat Vermeij demonstrates that escalation--the process by which species adapt to, or are limited by, their enemies as the latter increase in ability to acquire and retain resources--has been a dominant theme in the history of life despite frequent episodes of extinction.



Evolution of Living Organisms

Author : Pierre-P. Grassé

Publisher : Academic Press

Page : 310 pages

File Size : 28,11 MB

Release : 2013-09-03

Category : Science

ISBN : 1483274098

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Book Description

Evolution of Living Organisms: Evidence for a New Theory of Transformation discusses traditional interpretations of evolution with a new assumption. The book presents a rational and general account of real evolutionary phenomena based on paleontology and molecular biological data. The text reviews biological evolution from the simple to the complex or progressive and regressive evolution. The author explains the appearance of types of organization from Captorhinomorphs to Pelycosaurs to the Theriodonts— from which the mammals arose. He also explains that in the evolution to mammals, the transformation of the Theriodonts concerned only the skeleton, muscles, dentition, and not the brain. He cites the case of the Perissodactyls as an example. The author also asserts that paleontology and molecular biology can explain the mechanism of evolution without even detailing the causes of orientations of lineages, of the finalities of structures, of living functions, and of cycles. But this approach will involve metaphysics. This book can be appreciated by anthropologists, researcher and scientists involved in zoology, paleontology, genetics and biochemistry.



Principles of Evolution: Systems, Species, and the History of Life

Author : Jonathan Bard

Publisher : Garland Science

Page : 392 pages

File Size : 28,47 MB

Release : 2016-09-12

Category : Science

ISBN : 1351854771

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Book Description

Principles of Evolution considers evolution in the context of systems biology, a contemporary approach for handling biological complexity. Evolution needs this systems perspective for three reasons. First, most activity in living organisms is driven by complex networks of proteins and this has direct implications, particularly for understanding evo-devo and for seeing how variation is initiated. Second, it provides the natural language for discussing phylogenetic trees. Third, evolutionary change involves events at levels ranging from the genome to the ecosystem and systems biology provides a context for integrating material of this complexity. Understanding evolution means, on the one hand, describing the history of life and, on the other, making sense of the principles that drove that history. The solution adopted here is to make the science of evolution the primary focus of the book and place the various parts of the history of life in the context of the research that unpicks it. This means that the history is widely distributed across the text. This concise textbook assumes that the reader has a fair amount of biological knowledge and gives equal weight to all the major themes of evolution: the fossil record, phylogenetics, evodevo, and speciation. Principles of Evolution will therefore be an interesting and thought-provoking read for honors-level undergraduates, and graduates working in the biological sciences.