Evolutionary Patterns - Growth, Form, And Tempo In The Fossil Record - Jackson Jeremy-B-C

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Résumé :
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, prepared in honor of Alan Cheetham, 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 macro-evolutionary 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.

Biographie:
JEREMY B. C. JACKSON is director of the Center for Tropical Paleoecology and Archeology at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the William and Mary B. Ritter Professor of Oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. SCOTT LIDGARD is associate curator of fossil invertebrates in the Department of Geology at the Field Museum, lecturer in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago, and adjunct associate professor of biology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. FRANK K. McKINNEY is professor emeritus in the Department of Geology at Appalachian State University and Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Palaeontology at The Natural History Museum, London.

Sommaire:
["MODES OF DEVELOPMENT, HIERARCHIES OF MORPHOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION, AND THE ADAPTIVE SIGNIFICANCE OF COLONY FORM","Growth by intussusception in hydractiniid hydroids","Parts and integration: consequences of hierarchy","Refuges revisited: enemies versus flow and feeding as determinants of sessile animal distribution and form","RECOGNITION OF SPECIES, AND THE TEMPO OF SPECIATION AND EXTINCTION","Recognizing coral species present and past","Geologically sudden extinction of two widespread late Pleistocene Caribbean reef corals","Linking macroevolutionary pattern and development process in marginellid gastropods","The interrelationship of speciation and punctuated equilibrium","MACROEVOLUTIONARY PATTERNS AND TRENDS","On the ends of the taxon range problem","Evolutionary rates and the age distributions of living and extinct taxa","Contrasting patterns in rare and abundant species during evolutionary turnover","Asexual propagation in cheilostome bryozoa: evolutionary trends in a major group of colonial animals","Macroevolutionary trends: perception depends on the measure used"]