This volume 1 and its companion volume 2 present the results of new investigations into the geology, paleontology and paleoecology of the early hominin site of Laetoli in northern Tanzania. The site is one of the most important paleontological and paleoanthropological sites in Africa, worldrenowned for the discovery of fossils of the early hominin Australopithecus afarensis, as well as remarkable trails of its footprints. The first volume provides new evidence on the geology, geochronology, ecology, ecomorphology and taphonomy of the site. The second volume describes newly discovered fossil hominins from Laetoli, belonging to Australopithecus afarensis and Paranthropus aethiopicus, and presents detailed information on the systematics and paleobiology of the diverse associated fauna. Together, these contributions provide one of the most comprehensive accounts of a fossil hominin site, and they offer important new insights into the early stages of human evolution and its context.

Although consensus exists among researchers that birds evolved from coelurosaurian theropods, paleontologists still debate the identification of the group of coelurosaurians that most closely approaches the common ancestor of birds. The last 20 years witnessed the discovery of a wide array of avian-like theropods that has considerably amplified the anatomical disparity among deinonychosaurians, some of which resemble Archaeopteryx more than Deinonychus. Among these newly discovered theropods that show remarkable bird-like characteristics are the four-winged theropods Microraptor and Anchiornis, and the unenlagiids Unenlagia, Buitreraptor, and Rahonavis. A bizarre group of minute-sized coelurosaurs, the Scansoriopterygidae, also exhibits some avian similarities that lead some authors to interpret them as more closely related to birds than other dinosaurs. With the aim to explore the phylogenetic relationships of these coelurosaurians and birds, we merged recently published integrative databases, resulting in significant changes in the topological distribution of taxa within Paraves. We present evidence that Dromaeosauridae, Microraptoria, Unenlagiidae, and Anchiornis ] Xiaotingia form successive sister taxa of Aves, and that the Scansoriopterygidae are basal coelurosaurians not closely related to birds. The implications in the evolutionary sequence of anatomical characters leading to birds, including the origin of flight, are also considered in light of this new phylogenetic hypothesis.

This book covers the hot topics of angiosperm structure and evolution in several chapters discussing vegetative and reproductive characters. It also looks at the implications of ancestral angiosperm characters for an herbaceous origin and the phylogeny of angiosperms from a structure and molecular perspective.

Marine mammals have long captured the attention of humans. Ancient peoples etched seals and dolphins on the walls of Paleolithic caves; today, engineers develop microprocessors to track these denizens of the deep. This groundbreaking book from highly respected marine mammal paleontologist Annalisa Berta delves into the story of the extraordinary adaptations that gave the world these amazing animals. The Rise of Marine Mammals reveals remarkable fossil record discoveries that shed light on the origins, relationships, and diversification of marine mammals. Focusing on evolution and paleobiology, Berta provides an overview of marine mammal species diversity, enhanced with gorgeous life restorations by Carl Buell, Robert Boessenecker, William Stout, and Ray Troll and extensive line drawings by graphics editor James L. Sumich. The book also considers ongoing conservation challenges, demonstrating how the fossil record of adaptation in response to past environmental shifts may illuminate the way that marine mammals respond to global climate change. This invaluable biological framework is essential for helping us understand how best to protect and conserve today's polar bears, whales, dolphins, seals, and fellow warm-blooded ocean dwellers. The Rise of Marine Mammals also describes exciting breakthroughs that rely on new techniques of study, including 3-D imaging, and molecular, finite element, and morphometric analyses, which have enhanced scientists' understanding of everything from the anatomy of fetal whales to the genes behind limb loss in cetaceans. Mammalogists, paleontologists, and marine scientists will find Berta's insights absorbing, while developmental and molecular biologists, geneticists, and ecologists exploring integrative research approaches will benefit from her fresh perspective.

This volume reviews the meaning of taxonomic statements and considers our present knowledge regarding the number and characteristics of species among living and extinct primates, including man and his ancestors. They also examine the relationship of behaviour changes and selection pressures in evolutionary sequences. First published in 1964.

Taphonomic bias is a pervasive feature of the fossil record. A pressing concern, however, is the extent to which taphonomic processes have varied through the ages. It is one thing to work with a biased data set and quite another to work with a bias that has changed with time. This book includes work from both new and established researchers who are using laboratory, field and data-base techniques to characterise and quantify the temporal and spatial variation in taphonomic bias. It may not provide all the answers but it will at least shed light on the right questions.

Modern birds (Neornithes) are represented by two big lineages, the Palaeognathae (Tinamiformes + Ratitae) and the Neognathae [Galloanserae + Neoaves (Metaves + Coronoaves)]. Both clades sum approximately 10,000 species of which 60% are Passeriformes (the most diverse clade of terrestrial vertebrates). A comparison between the past and the present reveals a complex and hallmarked evolutionary and biogeographic history which would have begun over 65 million years ago. For South America (SA) this includes: (1) the presence of taxa with uncertain affinities and the absence of Passeriformes during the Paleogene; (2) a progressive and accelerated increase of the species starting at the Neogene (Miocene); (3) important extinct lineages (e.g. Phorusrhacidae, Teratornithidae) that migrate to North America after the rising of the Panama isthmus; (4) groups with major diversification in the Neogene that survives nowadays represented by scarce species endemic of SA (Cariamidae) or that inhabits mainly in the southern hemisphere (Anhingidae); (5) very diverse living groups with scarce (e.g., Passeriformes) or none (e.g., Apodiformes) fossil record in SA, which stem-groups are registered in Europe. Apparently, the changes in diversity of the south American Neornithes have been the result of successive radiation, biogeographic connections with North America and in a minor scale, some extinctions. The opening of the Drakes passage and the occurrence of the circumpolar Antarctic flow are not sufficient causes to explain the highly disparity between the weddelians penguins (Sphenisciformes) of Antartica and those of the patagonian Atlantic Ocean.

One of the most intriguing paleobiogeographical phenomena involving the origins and gradual sundering of Gondwana concerns the close similarities and, in most cases, inferred sister-group relationships of a number of terrestrial and freshwater vertebrate taxa, e.g., dinosaurs, flying birds, mammals, etc., recovered from uppermost Cretaceous/ Paleogene deposits of West Antarctica, South America, and NewZealand/Australia. For some twenty five extensive and productive investigations in the field of vertebrate paleontology has been carried out in latest Cretaceous and Paleogene deposits in the James Ross Basin, northeast of the Antarctic Peninsula (AP), West Antarctica, on the exposed sequences on James Ross, Vega, Seymour (=Marambio) and Snow Hill islands respectively. The available geological, geophysical and marine faunistic evidence indicates that the peninsular (AP) part of West Antarctica and the western part of the tip of South America (Magallanic Region, southern Chile) were positioned very close in the latest Cretaceous and early Paleogene favoring the "Overlapping" model of South America-Antarctic Peninsula paleogeographic reconstruction. Late Cretaceous deposits from Vega, James Ross, Seymour and Snow Hill islands have produced a discrete number of dinosaur taxa and a number of advanced birds together with four mosasaur and three plesiosaur taxa, and a few shark and teleostean taxa.

Carbonate depositional systems in the Paleozoic geologic time represent fewer studies in paleoecological interactions than the siliciclastic systems. To evaluate this difference, the paleontology of the Middle Devonian Dundee Formation in Ohio has been explored. This geologic formation represents an important environment in the Michigan Basin of North America. Understanding biotic relationships such as mutualism, commensalism, parasitism and predation in an ecological community is important in unraveling the mystery of the fossil record. This research has contributed a large field collection which will be useful in documenting the fossil content of this unit for future workers. Rituparna Bose used new microscopic and imaging techniques in qualitatively analyzing the biotic interactions in small invertebrate shells. More importantly, she solved complex hypotheses in newly emerging problems in the field of geology and paleontology, such as the biodiversity crisis. Her study involved exploring the Devonian geology and paleontology of a geologic formation of a new unexplored quarry in Ohio, namely the Whitehouse Quarry in Lucas County, Ohio. She identified Devonian brachiopods to the genus level based on their morphology, and diagnosed paleoecological entities on host brachiopods and further measured episkeletobiont traces on hosts to understand the effects of environment and evolution on extinct species. Such studies have implications in predicting future biodiversity, ecosystem conservation and climate change. This research will also assist future workers to compare the ecology of brachiopod hosts of the Dundee Limestone with that of other Devonian brachiopods, from both carbonate and siliciclastic settings.

The Mjolnir impact structure was recognized in 1993 and included in the Earth Impact Database in 1996, based on the discoveries of unequivocal meteorite impact indicators such as shocked quartz, Ir-enrichments, possible glass remnants, fragments of nickel-rich iron oxides, in addition to the convincing complex crater shape of the structure. This book presents the geological and geophysical history of the Barents Sea region along with the discovery of the Mjolnir impact crater. We place the Mjolnir event into the geological framework of the region and present elaborative numerical models of its formation and associated tsunami generation. The book represents an update and synthesis as well as the complete compilation of the Mjolnir crater studies. "

Invertebrate pathology, like medical and veterinary pathology, for many years has been spearheaded by practical applications al though in more recent times many investigators have elected to focus their attention on basic mechanisms and the elucidation of basic phenomena. Although Elie Metachnikoff and Louis Pasteur may be considered the forerunners of invertebrate pathology, in modern times the late Edward A. Steinhaus and the late Arthur M. Heimpel, among others, must be considered the principal disciples. Con sequently, in recent years several symposia have been organized in honor of the memory of Steinhaus and Heimpel. When the proceedings of these occasions were examined and reviewed, it was decided that these could naturally be considered chapters of a single volume of Comparative Pathobiology under the subtitle selected. We wish to note that the chapters devoted to various aspects of Bacillus thuringiensis were originally presented at the thirteenth annual meeting of the Society for Invertebrate Pathology held in Seattle, Washington, on July 26 - August 2, 1980, under the title of the "Edward A. Steinhaus Memorial Symposium". This includes the contribution by Dr. Robert M. Faust on the professional contributions of Dr. Arthur M. Heimpel. Art, as he was known to his friends, was a founding member of the Society and later served as its president. The circle of his professional associates was international.

A top priority in climate research is obtaining broad-extent and long-term data to support analyses of historical patterns and trends, and for model development and evaluation. Along with directly measured climate data from the present and recent past, it is important to obtain estimates of long past climate variations spanning multiple centuries and millennia. These longer time perspectives are needed for assessing the unusualness of recent climate changes, as well as for providing insight on the range, variation and overall dynamics of the climate system over time spans exceeding available records from instruments, such as rain gauges and thermometers. Tree rings have become increasingly valuable in providing this long-term information because extensive data networks have been developed in temperate and boreal zones of the Earth, and quantitative methods for analyzing these data have advanced. Tree rings are among the most useful paleoclimate information sources available because they provide a high degree of chronological accuracy, high replication, and extensive spatial coverage spanning recent centuries. With the expansion and extension of tree-ring data and analytical capacity new climatic insights from tree rings are being used in a variety of applications, including for interpretation of past changes in ecosystems and human societies. This volume presents an overview of the current state of dendroclimatology, its contributions over the last 30 years, and its future potential. The material included is useful not only to those who generate tree-ring records of past climate-dendroclimatologists, but also to users of their results-climatologists, hydrologists, ecologists and archeologists. 'With the pressing climatic questions of the 21st century demanding a deeper understanding of the climate system and our impact upon it, this thoughtful volume comes at critical moment. It will be of fundamental importance in not only guiding researchers, but in educating scientists and the interested lay person on the both incredible power and potential pitfalls of reconstructing climate using tree-ring analysis.', Glen M. MacDonald, UCLA Institute of the Environment, CA, USA 'This is an up-to-date treatment of all branches of tree-ring science, by the world's experts in the field, reminding us that tree rings are the most important source of proxy data on climate change. Should be read by all budding dendrochronology scientists.', Alan Robock, Rutgers University, NJ, USA

I see a man's life is a tedious one. Cymbeline, Act III, Sc. 6. It is well known that the best way to learn a subject is to teach it! Along the same lines one might also say that a pleasant way of learning a subject and at the same time getting to know quite a few of the workers active in it, is to arrange and to attend an Advanced Study Institute (ASI) or a workshop lasting about two weeks. This was and is the wisdom behind the NA TO-ASI programme and much as people fear that a fortnight may be too long, before it is over everyone feels that it was too short, especially if the weather had cooperated. Organising this ASI which resulted in this volume has been a very good learning experience. I started my career in research with invertebrates and retained an interest in them over the years due to my teaching a course and working sporadically on various aspects of photoreception in Polychaetes, Crustaceans and Insects. Thus, the thought of organising an ASI on photoreception and vision in invertebrates had been brewing in my mind for the past half a dozen years or so. It was felt that it will be desirable to do a bit of stock taking and discuss possible new approaches to the study of this matter.

This beautifully illustrated book describes one of the most famous fossil deposits known: the Hunsruck Slate of Germany. These spectacular fossils, in which not just the hard parts but also the soft-tissues of the animals are preserved in pyrite in many cases, provide the most complete record available of life in the Devonian seas. First published in 1998, the book provides a comprehensive account of these remarkable fossils. It is written in an accessible style, and is extensively illustrated with photographs and X-radiographs of many of the finest specimens. The book reviews the different plant and animal groups, and includes a complete taxonomic list and comprehensive bibliography. It will be of most value to researchers and graduate students in palaeontology, geology and evolutionary biology, but it will also be of interest to amateur collectors and natural historians.

Past climatic and environmental change is of prime importance in understanding climatic changes of today. This book describes and discusses the great environmental changes revealed by a study of a small area in central Norfolk, which has given a remarkable wealth of data concerning the many consequences of climatic change over the past few hundred thousand years. There is evidence for past ice advance over the area, for changes from tundra to forest climates and the reverse, and from stable conditions with lakes surrounded by forest to unstable periods with active soil flow under arctic conditions. The main purpose of this study is to demonstrate the evidence for climatic change and how this affected vegetation and flora and the processes which have formed the present landscape, and also to show the methods of study which can be used to investigate past climatic change and its consequences. Rather than a theoretical treatment of climatic change, this book is a unique 'case study' of an investigation of past climatic change.

Receptaculitids are extinct high-level fossils that provide a window into the history of life. After the discovery and analysis of a deposit of phosphatized receptaculitids on the Baltic Sea island of Oland, the authors conclude that receptaculitids possess an attribute not found in any other group of organisms, living or fossil.

Extinction is the ultimate fate of all biological species - over 99 percent of the species that have ever inhabited the Earth are now extinct. The long fossil record of life provides scientists with crucial information about when species became extinct, which species were most vulnerable to extinction, and what processes may have brought about extinctions in the geological past. Key aspects of extinctions in the history of life are here reviewed by six leading palaeontologists, providing a source text for geology and biology undergraduates as well as more advanced scholars. Topical issues such as the causes of mass extinctions and how animal and plant life has recovered from these cataclysmic events that have shaped biological evolution are dealt with. This helps us to view the biodiversity crisis in a broader context, and shows how large-scale extinctions have had profound and long-lasting effects on the Earth's biosphere.

Microfossils are ideally suited to environmental studies because their short generation times allow them to respond rapidly to environmental change. This book represents an assessment of the progress made in environmental micropalaeontology and sets out future research directions. The taxa studied are mainly foraminifera, but include arcellaceans, diatoms, dinoflagellates, and ostracodes. The papers themselves range from reviews of applications of particular taxa to specific case studies.

Olduvai is one of the most important prehistoric sites in the world; indeed, the only Middle Pleistocene site of comparable importance is Choukoutien and Olduvai can show deposits far older. The site has produced a mass of material of the highest archaeological and palaeontology importance and in this first of five volumes Dr Leakey and his collaborators make their preliminary reports. The story of the excavations initiated by Dr Leakey in 1951 is well known. Their purpose was to locate and uncover a series of living-floors of early Hand-axe man and, if possible, of the preceding Olduwan culture. The discoveries were of striking and far-reaching importance. They included, besides a mass of tools and artefacts, small animal and human remains and the famous skull of Zinjanthropus boisei, the earliest tool-making man. Against this background Leakey and his collaborators discuss the geological evidence, its relation to the fauna and other fossil evidence, the problems of climatic sequence and the use of potassium-argon dating. The purpose of this volume is to provide a context in which the fossil human remains and the Stone Age cultural sequence at Olduvai can be studied.

Olduvai Groge is a valley in the Serengeti Plains at the western margin of the Eastern Rift Valley in northern Tanzania. The formations discussed in this volume, Beds I and II, were deposited in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene and have yielded large quantities of the remains of early man, in the form of bones and stone tools and evidence of the environment in which they lived. Bed I, in which remains of Australopithecus boisei and Homo habilis have been found, is firmly dated between 1.9 million years for the lowest level and 1.65 million years for a level below the top. This third volume describes the excavations. In Part I, starting with the lowest levels and devoting a chapter to each main level, Dr Leakey describes the actual process of excavation and the finding of the principal remains. In Part II, Dr Leakey describes the circumstances of the discovery of the hominid skeletal remains. These range from purposive excavation to accidental discovery while collecting small stones for mixing in concrete. Finally, mammalian bones, as tools and as food remains are discussed.

At Olduvai Gorge natural erosion exposed a deep series of superimposed geological beds containing rich artefact and fossil assemblages spanning the last 1.8 million years. The sire ot famous as a rsult of excavations conducted there since 1951 under the direction of Mary Leakey and her husband, the late Louis Leakey. This volume, written largely by Mary Leakey herself, is the last of the reports and records the archaeological finds in the upper part of the Olduvai sequence from excavations carried out from the end of 1968 until 1971. The period covered here is from about 1.2 to 0.4 million years ago and th efinds include artefacts and faunal remains excavated from sites in beds II, IV na the Masek beds. The volume follows on from the archaeological record in beds I and II published in volume 3 of the series.

One of the great enigmas of evolutionary biology has been how to treat animals of problematic systematic position. Many are known only as fossils, so this area has been of particular interest to palaeobiologists. This book represents a wide synthesis. It embraces not only general problems of animal classification of animals and new information on their molecular sequences that bear on their wider relationships, but also addresses more specific problems. These include details appraisals of both living and fossil groups. From the fossil record special emphasis is laid on examples from exceptionally preserved biotas that include the Burgess shale-type faunas of the Cambrian of south China and western North America, the Carboniferous Mazon Creek beds of Illinois, and the Jurassic Osteno beds of northern Italy. In addition, experimental studies of soft-patrt preservation in jellyfish are relevant to comparable preservation in the fossil record.

Living material contains about twenty different sorts of atom combined into a set of relatively simple molecules. Astrobiologists tend to believe that abiotic mater ial will give rise to life in any place where these molecules exist in appreciable abundances and where physical conditions approximate to those occurring here on Earth. We think this popular view is wrong, for it is not the existence of the building blocks of life that is crucial but the exceedingly complicated structures in which they are arranged in living forms. The probability of arriving at biologically significant arrangements is so very small that only by calling on the resources of the whole universe does there seem to be any possibility of life originating, a conclusion that requires life on the Earth to be a minute component of a universal system. Some think that the hugely improbable transition from non-living to living mat ter can be achieved by dividing the transition into many small steps, calling on a so-called 'evolutionary' process to bridge the small steps one by one. This claim turns on semantic arguments which seek to replace the probability for the whole chain by the sum of the individual probabilities of the many steps, instead of by their product. This is an error well known to those bookies who are accustomed to taking bets on the stacking of horse races. But we did not begin our investigation from this point of view.

This volume is one outcome of the 6th International Conference on Paleoceano graphy (ICP VI). The conference was held August 23-28, 1998 in Lisbon, Portugal. The meeting followed the traditional format of a small number of invited oral presentations complemented by a large number ofcontributed posters. Over 550 participants attended, representing thirty countries and nearly 450 posters were presented. The invited speakers addressed the main themes of the 5oral sessions. The session topics were: Polar-Tropical and Interhemisphere Linkages; Does the Ocean Cause, or Respond to, Abrupt Climatic Changes?; Biotic Responses to Major Paleoceanographic Changes; Past Warm Climates; and Innovations In Monitoring Ocean History. This is the first time in ICP history that the Conference Proceedings are published. The aim of the organisers with the publication of this book is two-fold: to provide a useful review of the field and to document the ideas/controversies raised during the con ference that may stimulate future work. The book reflects the initial intentions of the conference, but it is not a conven tional conference proceedings, given that the papers have been reviewed by formal exter nal referees. Each of the conference topics is introduced by a review article designed to summarize the state of the art in each theme followed by articles prepared by the invited speakers. As with most conference proceedings, each theme is covered heterogenously. Some topics have all the expected contributions, others are less well covered."

Biogeography relates the evolution of the Earth's biota to major episodes in the Earth's history such as climatic changes and plate tectonic events. Furthermore, biogeographic patterns have played a prominent role in the development of the theory of evolution. Thus biogeography has the potential to make important contributions to the field of geobiology. Paleobiogeography emphasizes how analytical techniques from phylogenetic biogeography can be applied to the study of patterns in the fossil record. In doing this, it considers the strengths and weaknesses of paleobiogeographic data, the effects of plate tectonic processes (specifically continental rifting and collision) and changes in relative sea levels in terms of how they influence the evolution and distribution of organisms.