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11 - Global events and biotic interaction as controls on the evolution of gastropods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2009

Stephen J. Culver
Affiliation:
East Carolina University
Peter F. Rawson
Affiliation:
University College London
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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Gastropods are one of the most diverse groups of animals, encompassing a wide variety of life habits from deposit feeding to hunting predation. They are abundant in most marine and many non-marine habitats and because of the relatively robust shells have an excellent fossil record. Because of their diversity and abundance as fossils, gastropods have been widely used in palaeobiogeographical and palaeoenvironmental studies, and some of the best examples of the influence of global events on the marine fauna involve these molluscs.

Although there are many examples to support the coincidence of global events and macroevolutionary history, there is evidence that the evolution of gastropod molluscs may, in addition, have been driven by biotic interaction.

In this chapter we discuss the development of predation in the Mesozoic before describing some aspects of the Cretaceous and Cenozoic development of the gastropods. Our examples demonstrate that both global events and biotic interaction have played a role but that we are a long way short of a definitive answer to what has been the relative importance of each as a controlling factor in the evolution of the present-day biota.

NATURE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE FOSSIL RECORD

Gastropods first appeared early in the Cambrian Period and, because of the relatively robust nature of their shells, they have remained one of the most species-rich groups that are preserved as fossils.

Type
Chapter
Information
Biotic Response to Global Change
The Last 145 Million Years
, pp. 149 - 163
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

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