Paleobiology Totally Explained

Everything about Paleobiology totally explained

Paleobiology (sometimes spelled palaeobiology) is a growing and comparatively new discipline which combines the methods and findings of the natural science biology with the methods and findings of the earth science paleontology. It is occasionally referred to as "geobiology." Paleobiological or paleobiologic research uses biological field research of current biota and of fossils millions of years old to answer questions about the molecular evolution and the evolutionary history of life. In this scientific quest, macrofossils, microfossils and trace fossils are typically analyzed. However, the 21st-century biochemical analysis of D.N.A. and R.N.A. samples offers much promise, as does the biometric construction of phylogenetic trees.
Some of the more-pertinent paleobiologic journals are: Biology and Geology; Historical Biology; Palaios; the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology; Paleobiology; and Paleooceanography.
An investigator in this field is known as a paleobiologist. Some of the more important research areas of paleobiologists are listed below, along with various internal linkages:

Paleobotany

applying the principles and methods of paleobiology to flora, especially green land plants, but also including the fungi and seaweeds (algae). See also mycology, phycology and dendrochronology.

Paleozoology

using the methods and principles of paleobiology to understand fauna, both vertebrates and invertebrates. See also vertebrate and invertebrate paleozoology, as well as paleoanthropology.

Micropaleobiology

applying paleobiologic principles and methods to archaea, bacteria, protists, microscopic pollen/spores, and perhaps someday viruses. See also microfossils, palynology, and microorganisms.

Paleobiochemistry

using the methods and principles of organic chemistry to detect and analyze molecular-level evidence of ancient life, both microscopic and macroscopic.

Paleoecology

examining past ecosystems, climates, and geographies so as to better comprehend prehistoric life.

Paleotaphonomy

analyzing the post-mortem history (for example, decay and decomposition) of an individual organism in order to gain insight on the behavior, death and environment of the fossilized organism.

Paleoichnology

analyzing the tracks, borings, trails, burrows, impressions, and other trace fossils left by ancient organisms in order to gain insight into their behavior and ecology.

Stratigraphic paleobiology

studying long-term secular changes, as well as the (short-term) bed-by-bed sequence of changes, in organismal characteristics and behaviors. See also stratification, sedimentary rocks and the geologic time scale.

Evolutionary developmental paleobiology

examining the evolutionary aspects of the modes and trajectories of growth and development in the evolution of life -- clades both extinct and extant. See also adaptive radiation, cladistics, evolutionary biology, developmental biology and phylogenetic tree.

Paleobiologists

The founder or "father" of modern paleobiology is said to be Baron Franz Nopcsa (1877 to 1933), a turn-of-the-century Balkan scientist. He is also known as Baron Nopcsa, Ferenc Nopcsa, and Franz Nopcsa von Felsö-Szilvás. He initially termed the discipline "paleophysiology."
   However, credit for coining the word paleobiology itself should go to Professor Charles Schuchert. He proposed the term in 1904 so as to initiate "a broad new science" joining "traditional paleontology with the evidence and insights of geology and isotopic chemistry."
   On the other hand, Charles Doolittle Walcott, a Smithsonian adventurer, has been cited as the "founder of Precambrian paleobiology." Although best-known as the discoverer of the mid-Cambrian Burgess shale animal fossils, in 1883 this American curator found the "first Precambrian fossil cells known to science" -- a stromatolite reef then known as Cryptozoon algae. In 1899 he discovered the first acritarch fossil cells, a Precambrian algal phytoplankton he named Chuaria. Lastly, in 1914, Walcott reported "minute cells and chains of cell-like bodies" belonging to Precambrian purple bacteria.
   Later 20th-century paleobiologists have also figured prominently in finding Archaean and Proterozoic eon microfossils: In 1954, Stanley A. Tyler and Elso S. Barghoorn described 2.1 billion-year-old cyanobacteria and fungi-like microflora at their Gunflint chert fossil site. Eleven years later, Barghoorn and J. William Schopf reported finely-preserved Precambrian microflora at their Bitter springs site.
   Finally, in 1993, Schopf discovered O₂-producing blue-green bacteria at his 3.5 billion-year-old Apex chert site in Pilbara Craton, Marble Bar, in the northwestern part of Western Australia. So paleobiologists were at last homing in on the origins of the Precambrian "Oxygen catastrophe."

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