Fossil Behavior Compendium
Features
- Provides comprehensive coverage that examines all time epochs, all environments, and all life forms
- Discusses topics in nontechnical terms for the general biologist and nonprofessionals interested in the field
- Includes a discussion of symbiosis that covers modern and fossil examples
- Compares patterns of behavior and coevolution in the past with those of the present-day descendants
- Examines how to evaluate the rates of evolution of behavior and coevolution at various taxonomic levels
Summary
In this complete and thorough update of Arthur Boucot’s seminal work, Evolutionary Paleobiology of Behavior and Coevolution, Boucot is joined by George Poinar, who provides additional expertise and knowledge on protozoans and bacteria as applied to disease. Together, they make the Fossil Behavior Compendium wider in scope, covering all relevant animal and plant groups and all epochs, and providing a detailed review of animal and plant fossil behavior in terrestrial and aquatic environments.
Fossil behavior encompasses not only past evidence of the life history of an organism but also behavioral, predation, and symbiotic interactions, including parasitism. This book compares patterns of behavior and coevolution in the past with those of the present-day descendants. It also discusses how to evaluate the rates of evolution of behavior and coevolution at various taxonomic levels. The compendium emphasizes the interactions between fossils and compares these interactions with present-day counterparts. It also provides new discussions on topics related to fossils in amber.
Keeping Boucot’s trademark, easy-to-read style, the book includes new findings never published previously, reports not easily accessed, numerous examples, 40 tables, 285 illustrations—some published here for the first time—and a four-page color insert. The book provides a concise account of the evidence for varied disease types recognized to date in the fossil record.
Table of Contents
Functional Morphology
Specialized, Potentially Interacting Biological Substrates
Mutualism
Host–Parasite and Host–Parasitoid Relationships and Disease
Density and Spacing
Predation and Feeding Behaviors
Communication
Trace Fossils and Their Formers
Specialized Substrates
Sexual Behavior
Parental Care
Depth Behavior
Phoresy
Carrier Shells
Pollination Ecology
Social Insects
Long-Range Migration
Molting
Sensitive Plants
Reptilian and Mammalian Burrows and Dens
Vertebrate Endocranial Casts
Preening
Grain-Size Selectors
The Seagrass Community Complex
Shelter
Flying and Gliding Vertebrates
Possible Genetic–Developmental Defects
Teratologies
Disease
Marine Molluscan Larval Types and Their Behavior
Competition Involving Bryozoans
“Lost” Behaviors and Their Vestigial Evidence
Stunting
Oceanic vs. Neritic
Human Behavior
Summary and Conclusions
References
Editorial Reviews
"This book is just what the title promises - it is an exhaustive compendium of diverse information about the fossilized evidence of the behavior of ancient animals. It is neither a textbook with lucid explanations of complex concepts, nor a symposium volume of detailed case studies, nor an engaging narrative of intrepid scientific adventures. Rather, the book is filled with a plethora of anecdotes and data that provide a springboard into further explorations of the vast literature on fossil behavior."
--A. A. (Tony) Ekdale, Pofessor of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah in Salt Lake City
"… a unique contribution to paleobiology, containing an overwhelming amount of detailed data on the inferred and actual behavior of virtually every group of organisms preserved in the fossil record…beautifully illustrated with hundreds of photographs and drawings of individual specimens … the authors have produced a tremendous contribution to modern paleontology."
—Edward Petuch, Florida Atlantic University, author of Cenozoic Seas: The View from North America
"… an impressive collection of fossil material and literature … This work takes paleobiology from a record of the succession of fossil taxa through time (certainly important to answering questions about evolution) to a much more exciting representation of changes in whole communities and ecosystems. … This book will contribute greatly to our perspectives on how integrated communities and ecosystems have developed through time."
—Timothy D. Schowalter, Department of Entomology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA
