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Plant-Arthropod Interactions in the Early Angiosperm History
Paleontologists just recently opened their eyes to the wealth of fossil documents relevant to plant - arthropod interaction and are busy now accumulating raw data. Perhaps the richest regional collection of interaction traces came from the mid-Cretaceous deposits of the Negev Desert, Israel, encompassing the time interval of the rise and basal radiation of angiosperms - the flowering plants. The arthropods (insects and mites) inserting their eggs in the leaves and making leaf mines and galls were discovering new possibilities for endophytic life that the flowering plants provided. Their morphological disparity suggests a diversification race, in which the angiosperms failed to override their leaf parasites. Only a small fraction of insect diversity is represented by body fossils that belong to one extinct and nine extant families of beetles and cockroaches mostly. Because similar structures are produced on leaves by parasitic arthropods of different systematic alliances, a purely morphological classification is worked out for the trace fossils, with but tentative assignments to natural taxa, referring to distinct types of parasitic behavior. It is the evolution of behavior that is documented by the trace fossils. The body fossils and parasitic traces represent morphologies and behavioral traits fairly advanced for their geological age. The expression, abundance, co-occurrence, and host specialization of parasitic structures, as well as the marks of predation on mines and galls betray regulatory mechanisms of plant - arthropod interaction, analyzed in the broad context of ecosystem evolution, paleogeography and climate change.
Krassilov, V. & Rasnitsyn, A (ED) 2008.
Plant-Arthropod Interactions in the Early Angiosperm History, ISBN 978-954-642-315-3. Pensoft Publishers & Brill, 165x240, illustrated by b/w photos, drawings and colour plates, index references, In English.
Price €URO 115.00
Europe: surface mail delivery €URO 12,
airmail delivery €URO 18;
Overseas: surface mail delivery €URO 15,
airmail delivery €URO 20.
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Terrestrial Paleoecology and Global Change
Valentin A. Krassilov
This book critically evaluates the currently popular ideas of global change based on the plate tectonics, extraterrestrial impacts, greenhouse warming, etc. and offers alternative models. Krassilov presents ecosystem evolution as a sustainability oriented process with an increase in the biomass-to-dead mass ratio as a measure of progress. This general tendency is reversed by the geobiospheric crises starting in the earth's interior and surfacing as the concerted geomagnetic, tectonomagmatic, geochemical and climatic events. These affect biota through turnovers of biotic communities and the adequate changes in population adaptive strategies, a major force under the species originations and extinctions, as well as the genomic evolution. The evolution of humans is envisaged as guiding this species to the role of the earth's custodian. The book is important for evolutionists, ecologists, geologists, climatologists, geneticists, integrative biologists, botanists, zoologists, and the general educated person who is intrigued by the dynamic historical processes which shape the evolution of biosphere. It could be used as a course book for undergraduate and graduate studies and is an excellent example of inspiring and creative interdisciplinary research of our planet. Valentin Krassilov is the author of 20 books, among them the Palaeoecology of Terrestrial Plants, Cretaceous Period, Angiosperm Origins, Ecosystem and Egosystem Evolution, etc. The new book is based on his lifetime experience in the fields of palaeobotany, palaeoecology, structural geology and evolutionary biology.
Krassilov, VA, Terrestrial Paleoecology and Global Change. Russian Academic Monographs, No 1, ISBN 9546421537, full colour edition, 170x240, graphs, photos, tables, bibliography. In English. Hardback, 480 pp.
Price €URO 74.50
Europe: surface mail delivery €URO 13, airmail delivery €URO 19;
Overseas: surface mail delivery €URO 15, airmail delivery €URO 23.
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