Nitrogen is an essential nutrient for all life on Earth and it acts as a major control on
biological productivity in the modern ocean. Accurate reconstructions of the evolution of life …

Major insights into the phylogenetic distribution, biochemistry, and evolutionary significance
of organelles involved in ATP synthesis (energy metabolism) in eukaryotes that thrive in …

A new theory about the origins of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in
the evolutionary transition to basic consciousness. What marked the evolutionary transition …

The emergence of the Ediacara biota soon after the Gaskiers glaciation ca. 580 million years
ago (Ma) implies a possible glacial fuse for the evolution of animals. However, the timing of …

Diverse bilaterian clades emerged apparently within a few million years during the early
Cambrian, and various environmental, developmental, and ecological causes have been …

Ichnology is the study of traces created in the substrate by living organisms. This is the first
book to systematically cover basic concepts and applications in both paleobiology and …

The ocean‐atmosphere system is typically envisioned to have gone through a unidirectional
oxygenation with significant oxygen increases in the earliest (ca. 635 Ma), middle (ca. 580 …

The enigmatic Ediacara biota (571 million to 541 million years ago) represents the first
macroscopic complex organisms in the geological record and may hold the key to our …

The oxygen content of the Earth's surface environment is thought to have increased in two
broad steps: the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE) around the Archean–Proterozoic boundary …

Choanoflagellates, the closest living relatives of animals, can provide unique insights into
the changes in gene content that preceded the origin of animals. However, only two …