Origin of Life, Radiation and Evolution of Diversity - Insights from the Chinese Fossil Record

Author: Fang Zongjie
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: The history of Earth life encompasses an extremely long and intricate evolutionary process. This book primarily explores the evolutionary process of life based on fossil evidence from China, including the origin and early evolution of certain biological groups, the radiation and evolution of biodiversity during major geological periods, and attempts to seek insights into biological evolution from the fossil record of China. As one of the key focuses of this book, biological radiation is a crucial component of the history of life but is rarely systematically discussed in evolutionary textbooks. Chinese materials provide many important pieces of evidence for this. The evolution of prehistoric marine biodiversity has not been comprehensively studied domestically. Based on the establishment of fossil databases for various groups, this book preliminarily explores the changes in marine biodiversity and its controlling factors from the late Precambrian to the Early Mesozoic in South China for the first time, providing systematic data from the same plate for global prehistoric biodiversity research. Extensive research has shown that the intensity of environmental changes has affected the process of biological evolution and the evolution of biodiversity to varying degrees, while biological evolution has profoundly influenced changes in Earth's surface environmental conditions. This book is suitable for researchers in geological sciences, paleontology, biological sciences, evolutionary biology, and others, as well as university teachers, graduate and undergraduate students, and individuals interested in the research content of this book.