Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

Journal of Paleontology

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (3) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by CARLSON, S. J. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

GHOSTS OF THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE IN BRACHIOPOD SYSTEMATICS

¹ Department of Geology, University of California, Davis 95616, carlson{at}geology.ucdavis.edu

Three historical phases can be distinguished in the study of brachiopod systematics over the past 75 years. Prior to 1956, systematic neontologists and paleontologists struggled to reconcile differences in perceived evolutionary patterns (and thus classifications) based largely on static morphological differences observed separately among living brachiopods and among fossil brachiopods. Following 1956, patterns of morphological distribution began to be interpreted relative to the processes by which they were formed, and a more dynamic view of brachiopod phylogeny and classification resulted. Over the past decade, newer methodologies (phylogenetic systematics) have allowed older phylogenetic hypotheses to be tested and evaluated. The major challenges that brachiopod systematists now face are not unique to brachiopods; they concern improving the methods of phylogeny (and classification) reconstruction so that all the sources of data available to paleontologists can be utilized more effectively. In the future, I predict that more intensified, global fossil collecting, together with further investigation of the embryology and development of brachiopods, and molecular systematic research, will play an increasingly larger role in revising the classification currently in use.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				N. BONUSO and D. J. BOTTJER A TEST OF BIOGEOGRAPHICAL, ENVIRONMENTAL, AND ECOLOGICAL EFFECT ON MIDDLE AND LATE TRIASSIC BRACHIOPOD AND BIVALVE ABUNDANCE PATTERNS Palaios, January 1, 2008; 23(1): 43 - 54. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				D. Jablonski Survival without recovery after mass extinctions PNAS, June 11, 2002; 99(12): 8139 - 8144. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]