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Long / Short Term Influences on Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2017

Kaustuv Roy
Kaustuv Roy*
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093 USA
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Extract

Change has been the rule in the history of life. Mammals today dominate the terrestrial habitats where dinosaurs once held sway. In modern oceans, ecologists can study many species of arthropods, but trilobites are long gone. Using data from the fossil record, David Raup estimated that only about one in a thousand species that ever lived on this planet is still alive today (Raup, 1991). On the other hand, the number of species and higher taxa has increased steadily over geologic time. Thus the history of life is essentially a history of turnover of species, lineages, and higher taxa over time.

Type
Section 4: Mechanisms of Evolution
Information
The Paleontological Society Special Publications , Volume 11: Evolution: Investigating the Evidence, 2nd ed. , 2002 , pp. 249 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © 1999, 2002 by The Paleontological Society 

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