Evolution and Escalation : : An Ecological History of Life / / Geerat J. Vermeij.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton eBook Package Archive 1931-1999
• VerfasserIn: Vermeij, Geerat J.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2021]; ©1987
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (547 p.)

Here is one biologist's interpretation of the chronology of life during the last six hundred million years of earth history: an extended essay that draws on the author's own data and a wide-ranging literature survey to discuss the nature and dynamics of evolutionary change in organisms and their biological surroundings. Geerat Vermeij demonstrates that escalation--the process by which species adapt to, or are limited by, their enemies as the latter increase in ability to acquire and retain resources--has been a dominant theme in the history of life despite frequent episodes of extinction.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- PART ONE: A Theory of Adaptation -- CHAPTER ONE: Aptations and Selective Agencies -- CHAPTER TWO: Limits to Adaptation -- CHAPTER THREE: Hypotheses and Their Evaluation in a Historical Science -- PART TWO: The Acquisition of Resources -- CHAPTER FOUR: Mechanisms and History of Competition -- CHAPTER FIVE: Safe Places, Anachronistic Aptations, and the Recycling of Resources -- CHAPTER SIX: The Predators of Armored Animals: Functional Morphology and History -- PART THREE: The Evolution of Armor and Locomotion -- CHAPTER SEVEN: The Functional Morphology and History of Gastropod Armor -- CHAPTER EIGHT: Opportunistic Armor: The Evolution of the Conchicolous Habit -- CHAPTER NINE: Locomotion and the Evolution of Movement in Gastropods -- CHAPTER TEN: Armor and Locomotion in Cephalopods -- CHAPTER ELEVEN: Armor and Locomotion in Bivalved Animals -- CHAPTER TWELVE: Armor and Locomotion in Articulated Animals -- PART FOUR: Escalation, Diversification, and Extinction -- CHAPTER THIRTEEN: The Dynamics of Escalation -- CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Extinction -- CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Implications, Difficulties, and Future Directions -- Appendix -- References -- Index