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.

Gregory Edgecombe has assembled premier specialists in the study of arthropods, each of whom addresses a major issue in arthropod diversity by reviewing evidence of key fossils from a common perspective and examining the interplay between extinct and extant species through inference of the structure of the arthropod evolutionary tree.With the most complete collection of modern perspectives on the history of Arthropoda, this volume advances the current debate on paleontology's role in discovering life's hierarchy. Of interest to specialists in a wide range of fields including paleontology, petroleum geology, oceanography, and entomology,Arthropod Fossils and Phylogeny will be the standard general reference on arthropod paleontology for years to come.

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.


Book Information
ISBN 9780231096546
Author Gregory Edgecombe
Format Hardback
Page Count 347
Imprint Columbia University Press
Publisher Columbia University Press