Arthropod Fossils and Phylogeny

by Gregory Edgecombe, Niles Eldredge

Overview

What light do fossils shed on the deep history of life's most diverse phylum, the Arthropoda? Are the interrelationships between major groups of arthropods — crustaceans, chelicerates, and tracheates — resolved the same way whether or not fossils are included? How should we combine evidence from extinct and extant taxa? These are the central questions of Arthropod Fossils and Phylogeny.

Many recent controversies in arthropod evolution have been initiated by new fossil discoveries and new interpretations of early fossils. This book examines the role that these finds and ideas have played in understanding the deep evolutionary history of arthropods. The authors of the book's seven chapters have been at the forefront of this research.

Contributions include phylogeny based on DNA sequence data for living groups, cladistic analysis of the major lineages of arthropods, detailed case studies of crustaceans, chelicerates, and lobopodians, and the evolutionary significance of arthropods in Cambrian fossil sites with exceptional preservation. All contributors use cladistic methods, presenting copious new data to stimulate further research.

The book will be a vital resource for paleontologists, researchers on extant arthropods interested in fossil history, and evolutionists concerned with how different kinds of systematic data should be analyzed.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231096546
Publisher:	Perseus (for Columbia University Press)
Publication date:	06/10/1998
Pages:	347
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.81(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Gregory D. Edgecombe is Senior Research Scientist at the Australian Museum, Sydney. He has written many papers on early arthropod (especially trilobite) evolution.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Role of Extinct Taxa in Arthropod Phylogeny, by Gregory D. Edgecombe
Molecular Systematics and Arthropods, by Ward Wheeler
An Arthropod Phylogeny Based on Fossil and Recent Taxa, by Matthew Wills, Derek E.G. Briggs, Richard Fortey, Mark Wilkinson, Peter Sneath
Cambrian Lobopodians: Morphology and Phylogeny, by Lars Ramskold and Chen Junyuan
Chengjiang Arthropods and Their Bearing on Early Arthropod Evolution, by Jan Bergstrom and Hou Xianguang
Early Arthropod Phylogeny in Light of the Cambrian "Orsten" Fossils, by Dieter Walossek and Klaus J. Muller
Fossils and the Interrelationships of Major Crustacean Groups, by Frederick Schram and Cees H. J. Hof
Fossil Taxa and Relationships of Chelicerates, by Paul Selden and Jason Dunlop