Evolution on Planet Earth

The Influence of the Physical Environment

Lynn Rothschild, Adrian Lister

438 pages, parution le 27/06/2003

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Résumé

Driving evolution forward, the Earth's physical environment has challenged the very survival of organisms and ecosystems throughout the ages. With a fresh new perspective, Evolution on Planet Earth shows how these physical realities and hurdles shaped the primary phases of life on the planet. The book's thorough coverage also includes chapters on more proximate factors and paleoenvironmental events that influenced the diversity of life. A team of notable ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and paleontologists join forces to describe drifting continents, extinction events, and climate change -- important topics that continue to shape Earth's inhabitants to this very day. In a world where global change has become an international issue, this book provides a several billion-year evolutionary perspective on what the environment and environmental change means to life.

The Physical Setting for Early Life
An Evolutionary Perspective of Nitrogen Fixation
The Coupled Evolution of Life and Atmospheric Oxygen
Chemistry of the Early Oceans
The Role of Carbon Dioxide in Plant Evolution
Solar Energy and Life
Could Life Travel across Interplanetary Space?
Genome Evolution and the Impact of the Physical Environment
The Impact of Gravity on Life
Gravity, the Atmosphere and the Evolution of Animal Locomotion
Evolution and Low Temperatures
Temperature, Tectonics, and Evolution
The Interplay of Physical and Biotic Factors in Macroevolution
The Causes of Phanerozoic Extinctions
Drifting Continents and Life on Earth
Land-Sea Relations and Speciation in the Marine and Terrestrial Realms
Tectonics, Climatic Change, and the Evolution of Mammalian Ecosystems
Ice Ages, Species Distributions, and Evolution
Environmental Variability and Its Impace on Adaptive Evolution, with Special Reference to Human Origins
The Younger Dryas, Climatic Change, and the Beginnings of Agriculture
The Physical Constraints on Extraterrestrial Life

L'auteur - Lynn Rothschild

NASA, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA

L'auteur - Adrian Lister

Editor, University College, London, UK

Caractéristiques techniques

	PAPIER
Éditeur(s)	Academic Press
Auteur(s)	Lynn Rothschild, Adrian Lister
Parution	27/06/2003
Nb. de pages	438
Format	19 x 25
Couverture	Relié
Poids	1230g
Intérieur	Noir et Blanc
EAN13	9780125986557
ISBN13	978-0-12-598655-7