Paleobiology
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bryozoans in an Ordovician
limestone, southern MinnesotaPaleobiology (or palaeobiology) is an
life sciences. Paleobiology is not to be confused with geobiology, which focuses more on the interactions between the biosphere and the physical Earth
.
Paleobiological
biometric construction of phylogenetic trees
.
An investigator in this field is known as a paleobiologist.
Important research areas
- .
- vertebrates and invertebrates. See also vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology, as well as paleoanthropology.
- .
- Paleovirology examines the evolutionary history of viruses on paleobiological timescales.
- macroscopic.
- prehistoric life.
- post-mortem history (for example, decay and decomposition) of an individual organism in order to gain insight on the behavior, death and environment of the fossilizedorganism.
- tracks, borings, trails, burrows, impressions, and other trace fossils left by ancient organisms in order to gain insight into their behavior and ecology.
- stratification, sedimentary rocks and the geologic time scale.
- extant. See also adaptive radiation, cladistics, evolutionary biology, developmental biology and phylogenetic tree.
Paleobiologists
The founder or "father" of modern paleobiology was Baron
Franz Nopcsa
(1877 to 1933), a Hungarian scientist trained at the University of Vienna. He initially termed the discipline "paleophysiology".
However, credit for coining the word paleobiology itself should go to Professor Charles Schuchert. He proposed the term in 1904 so as to initiate "a broad new science" joining "traditional paleontology with the evidence and insights of geology and isotopic chemistry."[1]
On the other hand,
algal phytoplankton he named Chuaria. Lastly, in 1914, Walcott reported "minute cells and chains of cell-like bodies" belonging to Precambrian purple bacteria.[2]
Later 20th-century paleobiologists have also figured prominently in finding
Gunflint Chert fossil site. Eleven years later, Barghoorn and J. William Schopf reported finely-preserved Precambrian microflora at their Bitter Springs site of the Amadeus Basin, Central Australia.[3]
In 1993, Schopf discovered O2-producing
Oxygen catastrophe".[4]
During the early part of the 21st-century, two paleobiologists Anjali Goswami and Thomas Halliday, studied the evolution of mammaliaforms during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras (between 299 million to 12,000 years ago).[5] Additionally, they uncovered and studied the morphological disparity and rapid evolutionary rates of living organisms near the end and in the aftermath of the Cretaceous mass extinction (145 million to 66 million years ago).[6][7]
Paleobiologic journals
- Acta Palaeontologica Polonica
- Biology and Geology
- Historical Biology
- PALAIOS
- Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
- Paleobiology (journal)
- Paleoceanography
Paleobiology in the general press
Books written for the general public on this topic include the following:
- The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs[8] to Us written by Steve Brusatte
- Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth's Extinct Worlds[9]written by Thomas Halliday
- Introduction to Paleobiology and the Fossil Record – 22 April 2020 by Michael J. Benton (Author), David A. T. Harper (Author)
See also
- History of biology
- History of paleontology
- History of invertebrate paleozoology
- Molecular paleontology
- Taxonomy of commonly fossilised invertebrates
- Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology
Footnotes
- ISBN 0-691-00230-4.
- Kent State University Press).
- ^ The paleobiologic discoveries of Tyler, Barghoorn and Schopf are related on pages 35 to 70 of Schopf (1999).
- ^ The Apex chert microflora is related by Schopf (1999) himself on pages 71 to 100.
- PMID 23565593.
- .
- PMID 27358361.
- ISBN 978-0062951519.
- ISBN 978-0593132883.
- ISBN 0-632-05149-3. The second edition of an acclaimed British textbook.
- quadrupeds.
- Matthew T. Carrano, Timothy Gaudin, Richard Blob, and John Wible, eds. (2006). Amniote Paleobiology: Perspectives on the Evolution of Mammals, Birds and Reptiles. Chicago: eras.
- Robert B. Eckhardt (2000). Human Paleobiology. Cambridge Studies in Biology and Evolutionary Anthropology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. archeologyto the field of paleobiology.
- Douglas H. Erwin (2006). Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago. Princeton: ISBN 978-0-691-00524-9. An investigation by a paleobiologist into the many theories as to what happened during the catastrophic Permian-Triassic transition.
- Brian Keith Hall and Wendy M. Olson, eds. (2003). Keywords and Concepts in Evolutionary Biology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: ISBN 978-0-674-00904-2.
- ISBN 0-226-38913-8. A fine American textbook.
- " in paleobiology.
- Donald R. Prothero (2004). Bringing Fossils to Life: An Introduction to Paleobiology. New York: ISBN 978-0-07-366170-4. An acclaimed book for the novice fossil-hunter and young adults.
- ISBN 978-1-4051-0345-9. An anthology of analytical studies in paleobiology.
- on land during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras.
- ISBN 978-0-87735-325-6. A much-cited, seminal classic in the field discussing methodology and quantitative analysis.
- Thomas J.M. Schopf (1980). Paleoceanography. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. paleobiologist. This text discusses ancient marine ecology.
- J. William Schopf (2001). Cradle of Life: The Discovery of Earth's Earliest Fossils. Princeton: to analyze microfossils of bacteria and archaea.
- Paul Selden and John Nudds (2005). Evolution of Fossil Ecosystems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-74641-0. A recent analysis and discussion of paleoecology.
- David Sepkoski. Rereading the Fossil Record: The Growth of Paleobiology as an Evolutionary Discipline (University of Chicago Press; 2012) 432 pages; A history since the mid-19th century, with a focus on the "revolutionary" era of the 1970s and early 1980s and the work of Stephen Jay Gould and David Raup.
- Paul Tasch (1980). Paleobiology of the Invertebrates. New York: mollusks, and arthropods.
- Shuhai Xiao and Alan J. Kaufman, eds. (2006). Neoproterozoic Geobiology and Paleobiology. New York: Ediacaran periodinvertebrates and algae.
- Bernard Ziegler and R. O. Muir (1983). Introduction to Palaeobiology. Chichester, England: E. Horwood. ISBN 978-0-470-27552-8. A classic, British introductory textbook.
