Special Issue "Paleontology and Geo/Biological Evolution"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. George D. Stanley, Jr.
Department of Geosciences, The University of Montana, 32 Campus Drive #1296, Missoula, MT 59812, USA
Website: http://www.umt.edu/geosciences/faculty/stanley/stanley.htm
E-Mail: george.stanley@umontana.edu
Phone: +1 406 243 5693
Fax: +1 406 243 4028
Interests: invertebrate paleontology & paleoecology; Triassic to Jurassic reefs and corals faunas; recovery from mass extinctions; Cambrian soft-bodied lagerstatten; using fossils to reconstruct paleogeography of displaced tectonic terranes

Dear Colleagues,

Life has been an amazing phenomenon and as far as we know, it is confined to planet Earth. Paleontology and ancient life are one of the most important forces on the planet.  Our biosphere, atmosphere and lithosphere has been influenced and indeed in many respects, controlled by the evolution of life during the past 3.5 billion years. Some of these changes have been gradual while others were geologically sudden. The interactions of tectonics, oceans and climate have changed through time, dramatically affecting the Earth’s paleontological and sedimentary record and the course of biotic evolution. Biological evolution also has been affected by forces from outside the planet including interactions with extraterrestrial bodies. This special issue will examine the fossil record and geo-biological evolution, focusing on two major themes:  1) important and unique events controlling the history of life through time and 2) important geo/biological themes that weave their way through time.

Prof. Dr. George D. Stanley, Jr.
Guest Editor

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Geosciences is an international peer-reviewed Open Access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. For the first couple of issues the Article Processing Charge (APC) will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

Type of Paper: Review
Title: Evolution in Isolation: The Miocene Steinheim Snails Reviewed
Author: Michael W. Rasser
Affiliation: Rosenstein 1, D-70191 Stuttgart, Germany; E-Mail: michael.rasser@smns-bw.de; Tel.: +49-711-8936-146; Fax: +49-711-8936-100
Abstract: The Steinheim Basin in Southern Germany is a fossil crater lake formed by a meteorite impact during the Middle Miocene. The lake sediments contain planorbid snail tests in rock-forming quantities. Several generations of palaeontologists have studied the highly variable morphology of these tests. The most important study was published in 1867 by F. Hilgendorf. It is a milestone in palaeontology, because it contains the oldest phylogenetic tree of fossils and represents one of the first evidences for Darwin’s theory on the origin of species. The current paper reviews the work of Hilgendorf and the discussions among contemporaneous biologists and palaeontologists – particularly Charles Darwin. Potential causative factors that may have controlled snail evolution as well as the present-day scientific relevance of the Steinheim snail tree are discussed.

Type of Paper: Review
Title: The Role of Biotic Interactions in Crinoid Evolution
Author: Tomasz K Baumiller; F. J. Gahn
Affiliation: Earth and Environmental Sciences, Curator, Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan, 1109 Geddes, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079, USA; E-Mail: tomaszb@umich.edu
Abstract: Throughout their history, the feeding ecology of crinoids has remained extremely conservative. Not only have they relied on passive filtration as the sole mode of feeding, but they have invariably utilized tube-foot covered arms as thefood-capturing appendages. And although stalkless crinoids now predominate, the use of a stalk for elevating the feeding apparatus above the substrate characterizes the vast majority of fossil crinoids. In spite of retaining this conservative mode of feeding and bauplane, evolutionary modifications in arm, calyx, and stalk morphology have been pervasive. While some of these have been interpreted in terms of the role they play in the physical environment, others have been considered as important to the interactions between crinoids and other organisms. Among the latter are arm and stalk shedding abilities, increases in calyx spinosity and plate thickness, modifications of the tegminal structure of the calyx and styles of arm branching. A review of studies focusing on such modification suggests that biotic interactions have played a central role in crinoid evolution.

Type of the Paper: Article
Title: Evolving Phytoplankton Stoichiometry Fueled Diversification of the Marine Biosphere
Author: Ronald Martin¹* and Antonietta Quigg²
Affiliation: ¹ Department of Geological Sciences, College of the Earth, Ocean, and Environment, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA; E-Mail: daddy@udel.edu.
² Phytoplankton Dynamics Laboratory, Departments of Marine Biology and Oceanography, Texas A&M University at Galveston, Galveston, TX 77553 USA; E-Mail:quigga@tamug.edu
Abstract: We integrate previously-published molecular clock, biomarker, and paleontologic investigations with our recent studies of phytoplankton stoichiometry (nutrient content) to examine the role of phytoplankton evolution in the diversification of the marine biosphere.  Most workers accept that calcareous plankton were absent during the Paleozoic, attributing their appearance in the Mesozoic to changing ocean chemistry.  However, similar conditions existed during the early-to-middle Paleozoic and biomarker and molecular clock data indicate the existence of coccolithophore lineages prior to the Mesozoic.  We suggest that calcareous phytoplankton existed prior to the Mesozoic but that their population densities were severely nutrient limited and therefore insufficient to overcome the preservational biases that existed in the Paleozoic.  Severe nutrient limitation of phytoplankton during the Paleozoic suggests that food quantity and quality (nutrient content) were critical to the diversification of the marine biosphere.  Rapid biosphere expansion during the late Proterozoic and early Paleozoic resulted in the massive sequestration of nutrients into biomass, and severe nutrient limitation during this time may have set the stage for the relatively constant marine biodiversity of the Paleozoic.  By contrast, continued nutrient input from land and the resulting increase of nutrient content of phytoplankton during the Meso-Cenozoic fueled the diversification of the Modern Fauna.
Keywords: coccolithophore; evolutionary fauna; metazoan; nutrients; phytoplankton

Type of paper: Article
Title: Squalicorax Chips a Tooth: A Consequence of Feeding-Related Behavior from the Wenonah-Mt. Laurel and Navesink Formations (Late Cretaceous: Campanian-Maastrichtian) of Monmouth County, New Jersey
Authors: Martin A. Becker ¹, John A. Chamberlain Jr. ² and Amber Koney ¹
Affiliations: ¹ Department of Environmental Science, William Paterson University, Wayne, New Jersey, USA 07470; E-Mail: beckerm2@wpunj.edu
² Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Brooklyn College and Doctoral Program in Earth and Environmental Sciences, City University of New York Graduate Center, New York, USA 10016; E-Mail: johnc@brooklyn.cuny.edu
Abstract: Chipped and broken functional teeth are common components in modern sharks with serrated tooth shape. Tooth damage consists of splintering, cracking, and flaking near the cusp apex where the enameloid is broken and exposes the osteodentine and orthodentine. Such damage is generally viewed as the result of enormous force applied during feeding as the cusp apex impacts skeletal anatomy of prey. Damage seen in an assemblage of serrated functional teeth from sharks Squalicorax kaupi (Agassiz, 1843) and Squalicorax pristodontus (Agassiz, 1843) from the late Cretaceous New Jersey resembles that seen in modern sharks and suggests similar feeding behavior occurred. Rare North American preservation events with Squalicorax teeth associated directly and indirectly with osteichthyan and reptile bones reinforce this view. Tumbling experiments with serrated modern and fossil functional shark teeth, including those of Squalicorax, show that teeth are polished , not cracked or broken, by post-mortem abrasion in Navesink sediment. This provides further evidence that chipped and broken Squalicorax teeth are feeding-related and not taphonomic in origin. Evolution of rapid tooth replacement in large sharks such as Squalicorax ensured maximum functionality after feeding-related tooth damage occurred. Serrated teeth and rapid tooth replacement in the large sharks of the Mesozoic and Cenozic afforded them competitive advantages that helped them to achieve their place as apex predators in today’s ocean.
Keywords: serrated shark teeth; squalicorax; Campanian-Maastrichtian; New Jersey; feeding-related behavior

Type of the Paper: Review
Title: Not All Ghost Lineages are Real: Misperceptions of what Paleontologic Species Represent may Create Illusions
Author: Joseph Daniel
Affiliation: Dept. Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences 4301 W. Markham St., Shorey 902, mail slot #510, Little Rock, AR 72205, USA; E-Mail: jdaniel@uams.edu
Abstract: Species and clades are basic concepts in phylogenetics, yet are difficult to define in practice. This is acutely true with fossil species, which are often equated with modern species, even though they are fundamentally different. The assumption that species represent unique evolutionary lineages cannot be assumed for fossil species. Problems can occur when phylogenetic analyses are correlated with stratigraphic data to determine the origins of different groups because of misperceptions of what fossil taxa represent. Fossil species not only are potentially suites of species unable to be separated morphologically, they represent clades of uncertain hierarchical affinity. Most phylogenetic analyses also assume ancestral species are not within the data matrix, but this potential cannot be ignored. These issues will be reviewed as a cautionary tale for those making absolute statements about relationships and extrapolating ghost lineages.

Type of the paper: Review
Author: Antonella Cinzia Marra
Affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Antichità, Università di Messina, Italy; E-Mail: amarra@unime.it
Title: Evolution of Endemic Species, Ecological Interactions and Geographical Changes in Insular Environment: A Case Study of Quaternary Mammals on Sicily (Italy, EU)
Abstract: Quaternary mammals of Sicily are well known and five different faunal complexes have been distinguished on the basis of bioevents (i.e. extinctions and new arrivals) and evolution of endemic species. Obviously, the composition of mammal faunas is strictly related to the dispersal ability of each species and to the paleogeography of the area. The Authors gave a great role to paleogeographical changes in the control of the dispersals: the sea-strait between the island and the Italian peninsula had different wideness and deepness over time, operating different kinds of filter on the spreading of terrestrial mammals. Moreover, Sicily itself and the near mainland underwent changes in paleogeography during Quaternary. Some incongruence in bioevents has been attributed to the filter operated by the sea-strait, which could have acted in a differential way on large and small mammals. The role of ecological interactions among species and their control on bioevents have been greatly under-estimated. In this critical review, the changes in mammals associations are re-considered not only in terms of dispersal ability of species through the sea-strait, evolution of endemites, and paleogeography of the island, but also considering the ecological interactions among species.

Type of Paper: Review
Title: Coralline algae and corals: a long history of competition for space
Authors: Daniela Basso¹, Francesca Benzoni²
Affiliations: ¹Università di Milano-Bicocca, Dipartimento di Scienze Geologiche e Geotecnologie, Piazza della Scienza 4, 20126 Milano, Italy
²Università di Milano-Bicocca, Dipartimento di Biotecnologie e Bioscienze, Piazza della Scienza 3, 20126 Milano, Italy ; E-Mail: daniela.basso@unimib.it
Abstract: Crustose coralline red algae (CCA) are considered the second most important reef builder, after corals, in modern tropical reef ecosystems, and are the major framework builder, binder, and carbonate producer outside the tropics. Corals and corallines are both clonal and photosynthetic, they co-existed and diversified during the Cenozoic in the tropics, producing the modern coralgal reefs. Spatial competition between algae and corals is widespread on reefs, though it is believed that algae replace corals simply as the consequence of coral mortality due to other detrimental factors. The examination of modern and Cenozoic patterns of distribution or exclusion of corals and CCA shows that several combinations of physiological competitive advantages and favourable environmental conditions can occur along the latitudinal and depth gradients, and that such combinations may occur patchily within single marine geomorphological units. We review all the environmental and biotic factors controlling the coral-coralline competition for space, that shape the distribution of some carbonate facies in the geologic history.

Type of Paper: Article
Title: A Discussion of Extinct Paravian Feather Morphotypes
Author: Jingmai K. O’Connor, Luis M. Chiappe, Cheng-ming Chuong, Hailu You and David J. Bottjer
Abstract: At least two lineages of Mesozoic birds are known to have possessed a distinct feather morphotype for which there is no equivalent in living birds. The stepwise evolution of the apparently modern feather occurred within Maniraptora, basal to the avian transition, with asymmetrical pennaceous feathers suited for flight present in the most basal recognized avian, Archaeopteryx. The number of extinct primitive feather morphotypes recognized among non-avian dinosaurs continues to increase with new discoveries; some of these resemble feathers present in basal birds. As a result, feathers between phylogenetically widely separated taxa have been described as homologous. Here we examine the extinct feather morphotypes recognized within Aves and compare these structures with those found in non-avian dinosaurs. We conclude that the ‘rachis dominated’ tail feathers of Confuciusornis and some enantiornithines are not equivalent to the ‘proximally ribbon-like’ pennaceous feathers of the juvenile oviraptorosaur Similicaudipteryx. Close morphological analysis of these unusual rectrices in basal birds supports our interpretation that they are in fact modified pennaceous feathers. Because this feather morphotype is not seen in any living birds, we build on current understanding of modern feather molecular morphogenesis to suggest a hypothetical molecular developmental model for the formation of the rachis dominated feathers of extinct basal birds.

Type of Paper: Review
Title: Morphological Features of Teeth in Theropod Families and their Role in the Evolution
Author: Azzurra Cillari
Affiliation: Applied Petroleum Technology UK Ltd, 14, Wynnstay Rd, Colwyn Bay, LL29 8NB, UK; E-Mail: azzurra.cillari@gmail.com
Abstract:  Fossil teeth are useful tools to understand the feeding behaviour, the evolution of organisms and can be also used as marker in the stratigraphic correlation. Also theropod teeth, quite common in Mesozoic sediments, could be also used as marker. Unfortunately the state of the art does not allow an adequate classification of isolated teeth since a clear definition of tooth morphological features has not been defined in detail for each family. An attempt to investigate these characteristics was made taking in account the teeth description in literature assisted by the direct analysis of holotype specimens of non avian theropod teeth from some European museums collections. Observations on the materials have permitted the investigation of tooth features and their variations defining the principal characteristics of each broad non avian theropod family. The identification of teeth features have highlighted an interesting link with the evolution of theropod dentition. Furthermore these characteristics could give a support in the identification of isolated theropod teeth useful for stratigraphic correlations.
Keywords: theropod; teeth; morphology

Type of Paper: Article
Title: A Quantitative Evaluation of Old World Primates during Miocene
Author: Petruso D. ¹ and Sineo L. ²
Affiliation: ¹ Dip. Scienze della Terra e del Mare Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italy
² Dip. Biologia ambientale e Biodiversità Università degli Studi di Palermo, Italy
Abstract: A taxonomic evaluation of Miocene Primate fossil record of the Old World is presented. The dataset has been compiled using the information and the structure presented by the NOW database (Neogene Mammalian of the Old World; Academy of Finland, 2008), strongly updated with the additional information derived from different literature sources. A quantitative methodology for compilation and analysis of the data has been applied following the methodology described in Petruso et al. (2008). The adopted numerical treatment of data is particularly effective in synthesizing and analyzing the large amount of information contained in the data set. This analysis gives a synthetic picture of the consistence of Primate fossil record, analysed at different taxonomic level, during the aforementioned epoch, in respect to the geographic distribution. Nevertheless an ecological analysis permitted to better understand the variation of some parameters, such as the diet and the type of locomotion, relative to time and geographic distribution. The work represents a contribution to the complex question connected to the evaluation of the actual consistency of Primate fossil record.