Terrestrial Paleoecology & Global Change
By V. Krassilov
March 2003
Pensoft Publishers
ISBN: 9546421537
472 pages, Illustrated, 6 3/4 x 9 1/2"
$155.00 Hardcover
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 sustainable oriented process with an increase in the biomass-to-dead mass ratio as a measure of progress. This general tendency is reversed 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 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 biodiversity evolution. 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 many year experience in the fields of palaeobotany, palaeoecology, structural geology and evolutionary biology.
Geology
Russian Academic Monographs, No 1.
Return to Coronet Books main page