Species and speciation in the fossil record / edited by Warren D. Allmon and Margaret M. Yacobucci.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: taking fossil species seriously / W.D. Allmon and M.M. Yacobucci -- The "species concept" and the beginnings of paleobiology / David Sepkoski -- The species problem: concepts, conflicts, and patterns preserved in the fossil record / W. Miller III -- Studying species in the fossil record: a review and recommendations for a more unified approach / W.D. Allmon -- The stages of speciation: a stepwise framework for analysis of speciation in the fossil record / W.D. Allmon and S.D. Sampson -- Morphology and molecules: an integrated comparison of phenotypic and genetic rates of evolution / S.J. Hageman -- Fitting ancestral age-dependent speciation models to fossil data / H. Liow and T. Ergon -- Contrasting patterns of speciation in reef corals and their relationship to population connectivity / A.F. Budd and J.M. Pandolfi -- Towards a model for speciation in ammonoids / M. Yacobucci -- Species of decapoda (crustacea) in the fossil record: patterns, problems, and progress / E. Schweitzer and R.M. Feldmann -- Fossil species as data: a perspective from echinoderms / W.I. Ausich -- Species and the fossil record of fishes / W.E. Bemis -- Invasive species and speciation / A.L. Stigall -- Fossil species lineages and their defining traits: taxonomic "usefulness" and evolutionary modes / J. Hopkins and S. Lidgard -- Geographic clines, chronoclines, and the fossil record: implications for speciation theory / R. Prothero, V.J. Syverson, K.R. Raymond, M. Madan, S. Molina, A. Fragomeni, S. Desantis, A. Sutyagina, and G.L. Gage.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed September 7, 2016).

Although the species is one of the fundamental units of biological classification, there is remarkably little consensus among biologists about what defines a species, even within distinct sub-disciplines. The literature of paleobiology, in particular, is littered with qualifiers and cautions about applying the term to the fossil record or equating such species with those recognized among living organisms. In Species and Speciation in the Fossil Record, experts in the field examine how they conceive of species of fossil animals and consider the implications these different approaches have for thinking about species in the context of macroevolution. After outlining views of the Modern Synthesis of evolutionary disciplines and detailing the development within paleobiology of quantitative methods for documenting and analyzing variation within fossil assemblages, contributors explore the challenges of recognizing and defining species from fossil specimens--and offer potential solutions. Addressing both the tempo and mode of speciation over time, they show how with careful interpretation and a clear species concept, fossil species may be sufficiently robust for meaningful paleobiological analyses. Indeed, they demonstrate that the species concept, if more refined, could unearth a wealth of information about the interplay between species origins and extinctions, between local and global climate change, and greatly deepen our understanding of the evolution of life.

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