You can download Species and Speciation in the Fossil Record ebook here.
- Title: Species and Speciation in the Fossil Record
- Author: Warren D. Allmon, Margaret M. Yacobucci
- Publisher: The University of Chigago Press
- Pages: 434
This book seeks to address the Janus concept of species in paleontology. The chapters focus on fossil animals, because as we were planning the volume we quickly found that to include meaningful considerations of plants and protists would make the project too large. Within animals, we have tried with mixed success to include chapters from across the phyla Trilobites, however, are unfortunately not covered, and we are regretta bly light on vertebrates.
Exploration of the “species problem” in paleontology requires that we first understand its origins within the development of the Modern Syn thesis and of paleobiology as a discipline. Both Sepkoski (chapter 1) and Miller (chapter 2) provide such reviews herein, while highlighting paleontology’s unique contributions. Sepkoski argues that the development of quantitative ways of documenting and analyzing variation with fossil assemblages allowed paleontologists to integrate paleobiology into the Modern Synthesis.
Miller points to a growing modern consensus around the lineage species concept, noting that only paleontologists can provide the temporal perspective that this view of species requires. Allmon (chapter 3) agrees with Miller, and attempts to push this line of thought to its logical conclusion, making specific recommendations for how paleontologists should talk about species.
Paleontologists who work with different metazoan clades face a variety of challenges when attempting to recognize and define species from fossil specimens. Several of the chapters in this volume explore these taxon- specific challenges from their authors’ own perspectives.
While identifying a variety of difficulties, from poor preservation, homoplasy, and cryptic speciation to collecting biases and over enthusiastic splitting of taxa for biostratigraphic purposes, these authors also conclude that, with careful interpretation and a clear species concept, fossil species may be sufficiently robust for meaningful paleobiological analyses.