Bryozoa are among the most abundant yet least understood of phyla in the fossil record. These exclusively colonial animals can be traced back to the Ordovician as fossils and are common elements of sediments deposited in shallow marine environments. On occasion their calcareous skeletons are sufficiently numerous to produce bryozoan limestones. The potential of bryozoans in facies analysis, and their use in macroevolutionary studies, have both been widely recognised, but to date have been incompletely exploited. Bryozoan Paleobiology brings together the scattered research on living and fossil bryozoans in broad and profusely illustrated overview that will help students and researchers alike in understanding this fascinating group of animals. Beginning with the basics of bryozoan morphology, ecology and classification, the book progresses from the smallest scale of skeletal ultrastructure, to the largest of bryozoan distributions in time and space. On the way, topics such as the origin of zooidal polymorphism and macroevolutionary trends in colony forms are covered. Case studies illuminate these topics, and areas in which further research is particularly required are highlighted.

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.

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.

Sometimes lost in the deluge of attention devoted to national security challenges in the Middle East and Asia is the importance of America's own backyard, the countries and waters of Latin America and the Caribbean. Even as the United States combats terrorists and their state supporters in the greater Middle East, and even as long-range planners cast wary eyes on the growing power of China, American strategists cannot and should not neglect the threats or challenges closer to home. After all, as this volume and others point out, Latin America is a key economic partner, both a market for American products and a source of many of the goods North Americans have come to take for granted. Moreover, the distance between the two regions is not great; inevitably crises and festering problems in Latin America lead to such problems in the United States as illegal immigration. Conversely, the American struggles against al-Qa'ida and other transnational threats may bring unwanted attention to places like the tri-border region as terrorists transit or seek refuge. Newport Paper 21, Latin American Security Challenges: A Collaborative Inquiry from North and South, helps reopen the door to serious analyses of the relationship between Latin American national security issues and American strategic interests. The monograph consists of an introduction and conclusion and three substantive essays analyzing specific issues facing Latin America. The first builds upon the concepts of failed states and borderless regions to suggest how criminals and perhaps terrorists can find refuge and perhaps support in localities outside the control of states. The second essay provides a solid introduction to the interconnection of economic behavior and the national security threats facing both Latin American governments and the United States. The final essay speculates on the interest of China in the region, with particular attention to the potential roles played by immigration and Chinese ownership of firms charged with operation of both access ports to the Panama Canal. It is our hope that this work will help reinvigorate sound thinking about U.S. policies toward Latin America and encourage closer cooperation between strategists and scholars in both regions. Such cooperation would provide real benefits to the national security communities and military establishments in the United States and many critical Latin American countries.

In September 2005, fifty-five chiefs of navies and coast guards, along with twenty-seven war college presidents from around the world gathered in Newport for the Seventeenth International Seapower Symposium. We shared perspectives on a broad range of issues important to the global maritime community and individual countries through the mechanism of regionally oriented seminars. As the symposium drew to a close, a consensus was articulated that maritime security was fundamental to address these concerns, that the scope of security challenges reached beyond the waters of individual nations, and most importantly, that the responsibilities in the maritime domain-the great "commons" of the world-were shared. Moreover, the need was expressed for regional and global mechanisms that allowed maritime nations to more routinely and effectively bring their particular capabilities together to ensure a free and secure maritime domain. The host of the ISS, Admiral Mike Mullen, summarized the key proposition of the symposium: "Because today's challenges are global in nature, we must be collective in our response. We are bound together in our dependence on the seas and in our need for security of the vast commons. This is a requisite for national security, global stability, and economic prosperity." Acknowledging that "the United States Navy could not, by itself, preserve the freedom and security of the entire maritime domain," Admiral Mullen said that "it must count on assistance from like-minded nations interested in using the sea for lawful purposes and precluding its use by others that threaten national, regional, or global security." So too must each nation count on assistance from other nations. Over the past two years the Naval War College has found itself in a position of prominence in helping the leadership of our maritime forces, and the leaderships of our global partners, think through the implications of a new set of global security challenges and opportunities. It has been a very productive period since the College-against the fundamental notions of the Seventeenth International Seapower Symposium-was tasked to work on a new strategy "of and for its time." Critical to our effort to rethink maritime strategy has been an extensive scenario analysis and war-gaming effort and a series of high-level conferences, symposia, and other professional exchanges with maritime partners here in Newport and at other venues around the world. This collaborative effort has produced great insight and brought into focus the diverse perspectives necessary to make this strategy robust across multiple arguments and useful for both naval leadership and national policy makers in understanding the key role maritime forces must play in the evolving international system. We see some interesting new ideas in this strategy: the preeminent value of maritime forces to underwrite stability for the global system and an emphasis on unique capabilities inherent in maritime forces to prevent global shocks and to limit and localize regional conflict. While this enhances the long-standing naval commitment to provide high-end capability, there are clear new demands related to sustaining the global system-unique in the maritime domain. The new maritime strategy also recognizes that capacity must rely increasingly, across the range of military operations, on an expanded set of more robust, global maritime relationships-in effect, partnerships that engender trust, enable prevention, and yield more effective maritime security. The present volume contributes clearly and significantly to building just this sort of maritime partnerships. In subsequent guidance to the Naval War College, Admiral Mullen emphasized that any new strategy must be one viewed through the eyes of our partners. The essays from the Americas that follow are a compendium of "perspectives on maritime strategy."