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Paleontologists just recently opened their eyes to the wealth of fossil documents relevant to plant – arthropod interaction and are busy now accumulating raw data. Perhaps the richest regional collection of interaction traces came from the mid-Cretaceous deposits of the Negev Desert, Israel, encompassing the time interval of the rise and basal radiation of angiosperms – the flowering plants. The arthropods (insects and mites) inserting their eggs in the leaves and making leaf mines and galls were discovering new possibilities for endophytic life that the flowering plants provided. Their morphological disparity suggests a diversification race, in which the angiosperms failed to override their leaf parasites. Only a small fraction of insect diversity is represented by body fossils that belong to one extinct and nine extant families of beetles and cockroaches mostly. Because similar structures are produced on leaves by parasitic arthropods of different systematic alliances, a purely morphological classification is worked out for the trace fossils, with but tentative assignments to natural taxa, referring to distinct types of parasitic behavior. It is the Evolution of behavior that is documented by the trace fossils. The body fossils and parasitic traces represent morphologies and behavioral traits fairly advanced for their geological age. The expression, abundance, co-occurrence, and host specialization of parasitic structures, as well as the marks of predation on mines and galls betray regulatory mechanisms of plant – arthropod interaction, analyzed in the broad context of ecosystem evolution, paleogeography and climate change. Co-published by Pensoft Publishers & Brill Academic Publishers
Breathtaking in scope, this is the first survey of the entire ecological history of life on land—from the earliest traces of terrestrial organisms over 400 million years ago to the beginning of human agriculture. By providing myriad insights into the unique ecological information contained in the fossil record, it establishes a new and ambitious basis for the study of evolutionary paleoecology of land ecosystems. A joint undertaking of the Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems Consortium at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, and twenty-six additional researchers, this book begins with four chapters that lay out the theoretical background and methodology of the science of evolutionary paleoecology. Included are a comprehensive review of the taphonomy and paleoenvironmental settings of fossil deposits as well as guidelines for developing ecological characterizations of extinct organisms and the communities in which they lived. The remaining three chapters treat the history of terrestrial ecosystems through geological time, emphasizing how ecological interactions have changed, the rate and tempo of ecosystem change, the role of exogenous "forcing factors" in generating ecological change, and the effect of ecological factors on the evolution of biological diversity. The six principal authors of this volume are all associated with the Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems program at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.
The Late Pennsylvanian was a time of ice ages and associated climate dynamics. A major reduction in Gondwana ice-volume was followed by a prolonged period of relative global warmth, culminating in the last great ice age of the late Paleozoic. It also was a major turning point in the evolution of life on land, when the coal forests of the Middle Pennsylvanian gave way to new kinds of Late Pennsylvanian wetland vegetation, and new kinds of animals appeared. Changes in the terrestrial biota began during the Middle Pennsylvanian, accelerating and proceeding in a spatially complex manner throughout the Late Pennsylvanian. The Late Pennsylvanian is thus a laboratory for studying environmental changes in a glacial world, and for assessing coeval biotic changes, in part to establish the possible links between the two. No book has been dedicated to this time interval, so this volume fills a gap in our understanding of a dynamic Late Pennsylvanian world that is much like the late Cenozoic world.
Interactions between plants and animals are incredibly diverse and complex and span terrestrial, atmospheric and aquatic environments. The last decade has seen the emergence of a vast quantity of data on the subject and there is now a perceived need among both teachers and undergraduate students for a new textbook that incorporates the numerous recent advances made in the field. The book is intended for use by advanced level undergraduate and beginning graduate students, taking related courses in wider ecology degree programmes. Very few books cover this subject and those that do are out of date.
This book is devoted to the ichnology of insects, and associated trace fossils, in soils and paleosols. The traces described here, mostly nests and pupation chambers, include one of the most complex architectures produced by animals. Chapters explore the walls, shapes and fillings of trace fossils followed by their classifications and ichnotaxonomy. Detailed descriptions and interpretations for different groups of insects like bees, ants, termites, dung beetles and wasps are also provided. Chapters also highlight the the paleoenvironmental significance of insect trace fossils in paleosols for paleontological reconstructions, sedimentological interpretation, and ichnofabrics analysis. Readers will discover how insect trace fossils act as physical evidence for reconstructing the evolution of behavior, phylogenies, past geographical distributions, and to know how insects achieved some of the more complex architectures. The book will appeal to researchers and graduate students in ichnology, sedimentology, paleopedology, and entomology and readers interested in insect architecture.