Evolutionary Patterns

Jeremy B C Jackson

ISBN 10: 0226389316 / ISBN 13: 9780226389318

Published by University of Chicago Press, 2001

About this Item

pp. 416 Index.

Seller Inventory # 26683657

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Evolutionary Patterns
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226389316
• ISBN 13: 9780226389318
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

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 an 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 a 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.