Biotic Interactions In Recent And Fossil Benthic Communities

Hypothesis testing is not a straightforward matter in the fossil record and here, too interactions with biology can be extremely profitable. Quite simply, predictions regarding long-term consequences of processes observed in liv ing organisms can be tested directly using paleontological data if those liv ing organisms have an adequate fossil record, thus avoiding the pitfalls of extrapolative approaches. We hope to see a burgeoning of this interactive effort in the coming years. Framing and testing of hypotheses in paleon tological subjects inevitably raises the problem of inferring process from pattern, and the consideration and elimination of a broad range of rival hy is an essential procedure here. In a historical science such as potheses paleontology, the problem often arises that the events that are of most in terest are unique in the history of life. For example, replication of the metazoan radiation at the beginning of the Cambrian is not feasible. How ever, decomposition of such problems into component hypotheses may at least in part alleviate this difficulty. For example, hypotheses built upon the role of species packing might be tested by comparing evolutionary dy namics (both morphological and taxonomic) during another global diversi fication, such as the biotic rebound from the end-Permian extinction, which removed perhaps 95% of the marine species (see Valentine, this volume). The subject of extinction, and mass extinction in particular, has become important in both paleobiology and biology.

From the Foreword: "Predator-prey interactions are among the most significant of all organism-organism interactions....It will only be by compiling and evaluating data on predator-prey relations as they are recorded in the fossil record that we can hope to tease apart their role in the tangled web of evolutionary interaction over time. This volume, compiled by a group of expert specialists on the evidence of predator-prey interactions in the fossil record, is a pioneering effort to collate the information now accumulating in this important field. It will be a standard reference on which future study of one of the central dynamics of ecology as seen in the fossil record will be built." (Richard K. Bambach, Professor Emeritus, Virginia Tech, Associate of the Botanical Museum, Harvard University)

Palaeobiology: A Synthesis was widely acclaimed both for its content and production quality. Ten years on, Derek Briggs and Peter Crowther have once again brought together over 150 leading authorities from around the world to produce Palaeobiology II. Using the same successful formula, the content is arranged as a series of concise articles, taking a thematic approach to the subject, rather than treating the various fossil groups systematically. This entirely new book, with its diversity of new topics and over 100 new contributors, reflects the exciting developments in the field, including accounts of spectacular newly discovered fossils, and embraces data from other disciplines such as astrobiology, geochemistry and genetics. Palaeobiology II will be an invaluable resource, not only for palaeontologists, but also for students and researchers in other branches of the earth and life sciences. Written by an international team of recognised authorities in the field. Content is concise but informative. Demonstrates how palaeobiological studies are at the heart of a range of scientific themes.

This volume contains the papers and abstracts of the posters given at the symposium on Long-term Changes in Coastal Benthic Communities organized by the Commission of the European Communities in Brussels, Belgium from 9 till 12 December 1985. The organization of this symposium came to conclude five years of activities in the COST 647 project on Coastal Benthic Ecology, the rationale of which is explained in the foreword by B. F. Keegan. The importance of this volume is that for the first time special attention is given to long-term data series of relevant biological variables collected in different marine benthic habitats. Many of the data presented here are the result of years of careful data collection by some of the leading scientists in the field of benthic ecology. Some of the series, such as the Macoma balthica data from the Wadden Sea or the macrofauna data from Loch Linnhe, to name just those two, are already classics in the marine biological literature. Other data were collected in the framework of a monitoring programme and are now analyzed for the first time in the different perspective of the COST 647 project. Several papers are from related fields where they represent well known case studies; they were chosen in order to see how problems have been tackled elsewhere.

The northern Adriatic Sea is transient, most recently flooded between 18,000 to 6,000 years ago following the last glacial maximum, and it will drain again with the onset of the next glacial period. Despite its youth, uniformly shallow depth, and flat sediment floor, it hosts a broad range of bottom-dwelling sea life ecologically resembling communities that have existed in the shallow sea since the Ordovician Period, some 500 million years ago. The northern Adriatic is a natural laboratory in which to test hypotheses concerning the shift from the Paleozoic prevalence of stationary suspension-feeders living on the surface of the sediment and feeding from the overlying waters to, more recently, bottom-dwelling animals living dominantly in or actively seeking temporary refuge within the sediments of the sea floor, regardless of where they feed. Across the northern Adriatic Sea there is an ecological gradient from Paleozoic-style surface-dwelling communities in the east to "modern" communities living almost exclusively within the sediments in the west. Therefore, within the relatively small area of the northern Adriatic, there is an existing gradient similar to the profound ecological change from Paleozoic to more modern marine life. During the early twentieth century, life at the bottom of the Adriatic was systematically sampled from the east to the west coasts, revealing the most common animals and their distribution. In this book Frank K. McKinney combines these findings with more recent, local studies to understand better the ecological structure of the Adriatic's floor. Specifically, he uses the predation, sediment textures and deposition rates, currents, and nutrients of northern Adriatic bottom communities to evaluate hypotheses concerning the conditions that drove surface-dwelling animals to seek long-term refuge within sea floor sediment. Though the northern Adriatic has been well studied since the advent of the marine sciences, it is not widely known by paleontologists. With this volume, McKinney illuminates what this "living laboratory" can tell us about the evolution of multicellular life on Earth.

This is an important and authoritative review of foraminiferal ecology, the first for over a decade. Professor Murray relates ecological data on living forms of foraminifera to the palaeoecology of fossil species, and defines in detail areas of global distribution.

The dominant faunal elements in shallow Paleozoic oceans, echinoderms are important to understanding these marine ecosystems. Echinoderms (which include such animals as sea stars, crinoids or sea lilies, sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers) have left a rich and, for science, extremely useful fossil record. For various reasons, they provide the ideal source for answers to the questions that will help us develop a more complete understanding of global environmental and biodiversity changes. This volume highlights the modern study of fossil echinoderms and is organized into five parts: echinoderm paleoecology, functional morphology, and paleoecology; evolutionary paleoecology; morphology for refined phylogenetic studies; innovative applications of data encoded in echinoderms; and information on new crinoid data sets.