Author Description

<b>The study of the history of life</b> encompasses the origins of species to their demise: evolution to extinction. Based on studies of the fossil record, this book examines the directionality of evolution, a fundamental aspect of life history that has received comparatively little attention in recent times. In addition to describing evolutionary trends from the intraspecific level to macroevolutionary changes in a range of invertebrate and vertebrate organisms, the book's contributors explain why it is that organisms have evolved in the direction that they have. Their insights provide students and researchers of palaeontology and biology with a state-of-the-art coverage of one of the most important aspects of evolutionary biology.The first part of the book examines questions such as the relevant significance of adaptive or non-adaptive evolutionary trends; the relative roles of intrinsic factors, such as differential speciation and environmental change, on the generation of trends; and evolutionary trends in body size. The second part describes and interprets evolutionary trends in various intervertebrate groups: trilobites, bivalves, ammonoids, orinoids, echinoids and bryozoans. The third part covers fishes, reptiles, and mammals.