Evolution on Planet Earth: Impact of the Physical Environment
About this book
Takes a fresh look at how the physical environment influenced the early evolution of life on Earth. The second half of the book looks at more proximate factors and paleoenvironmental events that influenced the diversity of life on Earth. Here, notable ecologists, evolutionary biologists and paleontologists describe drifting continents, extinction events in history, and climate change.
An excellent text for introductory courses in biology, geology, and evolution. - SOUTHEASTERN NATURALIST (May 2006) "The entries are well-written attempts at opening a broad range of material to an interested audience...Highly recommended for libraries with science programs wanting to demonstrate true interdisciplinary work." -E-STREAMS (March 2004) "...recommended for libraries supporting undergraduate programs in biology, but it may be of broader interest since the abiotic subjects covered are often studied in chemistry and geology." -CHOICE (March 2004)
Contents
The Physical Setting for Early Life An Evolutionary Perspective of Nitrogen Fixation The Coupled Evolution of Life and Atmospheric Oxygen Chemistry of the Early Oceans The Role of Carbon Dioxide in Plant Evolution Solar Energy and Life Could Life Travel across Interplanetary Space? Genome Evolution and the Impact of the Physical Environment The Impact of Gravity on Life Gravity, the Atmosphere and the Evolution of Animal Locomotion Evolution and Low Temperatures Temperature, Tectonics, and Evolution The Interplay of Physical and Biotic Factors in Macroevolution The Causes of Phanerozoic Extinctions Drifting Continents and Life on Earth Land-Sea Relations and Speciation in the Marine and Terrestrial Realms Tectonics, Climatic Change, and the Evolution of Mammalian Ecosystems Ice Ages, Species Distributions, and Evolution Environmental Variability and Its Impace on Adaptive Evolution, with Special Reference to Human Origins The Younger Dryas, Climatic Change, and the Beginnings of Agriculture The Physical Constraints on Extraterrestrial Life
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Biography
Lynn J. Rothschild, a Research Scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, is immersed in the field of Astrobiology. She has broad training in biology, with degrees from Yale University, Indiana University, and Brown University. At NASA her research has focused on how life has evolved in the context of the physical environment, both here and potentially elsewhere. She has studied carbon metabolism and DNA damage and repair in algal mats, work that has taken her to field sites in Baja, Yellowstone National Park and thermal areas on New Zealand. As a result of this work she has become an acknowledged authority in the study of extremophiles, and wrote an invited review on them for Nature (2001). Recent honors have included election to the Presidency of the Social of Protozoologists, founding editor of the International Journal of Astrobiology, and a fellow of the Linnean Society of London. She has made several television and radio appearances, including on the Discovery Channel and World News Tonight, and lectures worldwide including most recently at the Vatican Observatory. Adrian Lister is Professor Palaeobiology at University College London. After a degree in Zoology from the University of Cambridge, he began research on Quaternary (Ice Age) mammals and their evolution. Today he is acknowledged as one of the world's leading experts on the biology and evolution of the mammoth and other ice-age species. He has worked on many excavations and fossil collections around the world, and has recently also become active in the field of elephant conservation. He has published over 100 scientific papers and the highly acclaimed book (with Paul G. Bahn) 'Mammoths'. He is on the Council of the Linnean Society of London and is a member of the Elephant working Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In 1998 he was awarded the Stopes Medal of the Geologists' Association for research into the environment of early Man.
