Terrestrial Palaeoecology and Global Change

Book excerpt: 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 earths 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 earths 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.