Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Cretaceous world
- 3 The Cenozoic world
- 4 Calcareous nannoplankton and global climate change
- 5 Phenotypic response of foraminifera to episodes of global environmental change
- 6 The response of planktonic foraminifera to the Late Pliocene intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation
- 7 The response of Cretaceous cephalopods to global change
- 8 Global change and the fossil fish record: the relevance of systematics
- 9 Response of shallow water foraminiferal palaeocommunities to global and regional environmental change
- 10 Intrinsic and extrinsic controls on the diversification of the Bivalvia
- 11 Global events and biotic interaction as controls on the evolution of gastropods
- 12 Algal symbiosis, and the collapse and recovery of reef communities: Lazarus corals across the K–T boundary
- 13 Changes in the diversity, taxic composition and life-history patterns of echinoids over the past 145 million years
- 14 Origin of the modern bryozoan fauna
- 15 Angiosperm diversification and Cretaceous environmental change
- 16 Cenozoic evolution of modern plant communities and vegetation
- 17 Leaf physiognomy and climate change
- 18 Biotic response to Late Quaternary global change – the pollen record: a case study from the Upper Thames Valley, England
- 19 The Cretaceous and Cenozoic record of insects (Hexapoda) with regard to global change
- 20 The palaeoclimatological significance of Late Cenozoic Coleoptera: familiar species in very unfamiliar circumstances
- 21 Amphibians, reptiles and birds: a biogeographical review
- 22 Paleogene mammals: crises and ecological change
- 23 Response of Old World terrestrial vertebrate biotas to Neogene climate change
- 24 Mammalian response to global change in the later Quaternary of the British Isles
- 25 Human evolution: how an African primate became global
- 26 The biotic response to global change: a summary
- References
- Index
1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Cretaceous world
- 3 The Cenozoic world
- 4 Calcareous nannoplankton and global climate change
- 5 Phenotypic response of foraminifera to episodes of global environmental change
- 6 The response of planktonic foraminifera to the Late Pliocene intensification of Northern Hemisphere glaciation
- 7 The response of Cretaceous cephalopods to global change
- 8 Global change and the fossil fish record: the relevance of systematics
- 9 Response of shallow water foraminiferal palaeocommunities to global and regional environmental change
- 10 Intrinsic and extrinsic controls on the diversification of the Bivalvia
- 11 Global events and biotic interaction as controls on the evolution of gastropods
- 12 Algal symbiosis, and the collapse and recovery of reef communities: Lazarus corals across the K–T boundary
- 13 Changes in the diversity, taxic composition and life-history patterns of echinoids over the past 145 million years
- 14 Origin of the modern bryozoan fauna
- 15 Angiosperm diversification and Cretaceous environmental change
- 16 Cenozoic evolution of modern plant communities and vegetation
- 17 Leaf physiognomy and climate change
- 18 Biotic response to Late Quaternary global change – the pollen record: a case study from the Upper Thames Valley, England
- 19 The Cretaceous and Cenozoic record of insects (Hexapoda) with regard to global change
- 20 The palaeoclimatological significance of Late Cenozoic Coleoptera: familiar species in very unfamiliar circumstances
- 21 Amphibians, reptiles and birds: a biogeographical review
- 22 Paleogene mammals: crises and ecological change
- 23 Response of Old World terrestrial vertebrate biotas to Neogene climate change
- 24 Mammalian response to global change in the later Quaternary of the British Isles
- 25 Human evolution: how an African primate became global
- 26 The biotic response to global change: a summary
- References
- Index
Summary
The simple desire to understand the world we live in has driven scientists for more than two centuries to study the history of life through time. It soon became evident to the early workers that this history is most certainly not a continuous one. Indeed, the recognition of sudden and fundamental changes in faunas and floras through time led to the designation of the segments of Earth history that we know as geological periods. The two greatest discontinuities in life's history, since organisms evolved fossilizable hard parts, are the mass extinctions that define the boundaries of three great segments of Earth history, the Palaeozoic, the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic eras.
What caused these and many other changes in the Earth's biota? For a long time palaeontologists have realized that faunal and floral changes are the result of either evolutionary innovations or of environmental changes at many different scales. This volume addresses biotic changes through time for a wide variety of organisms from tiny single-celled calcareous nannoplankton to the largest whale. We concentrate on the past 145 million years of Earth history because this is a large enough segment of time to allow us to evaluate both geologically instantaneous global environmental changes and environmental trends that take millions of years to unfold.
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- Information
- Biotic Response to Global ChangeThe Last 145 Million Years, pp. 1 - 3Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000