The dawn of animal life, a biohistorical study

List of figures and tables Preface 1. Precambrian life and its environment: a review: i. Theories about the origin of life and its environment ii. The Precambrian, its subdivisions, and the dating of biohistoric events iii. The preservation and recognition of organic remains in rocks: chemofossils, fossil organisms, pseudofossils iv. The cell: organization and life processes. The 'kingdoms' of organisms v. Proterozoic fossils and environments vi. Origins and early differentiation of the Metazoa 2. The Ediacarian faunal assemblages: discovery, composition, significance i. Discoveries at Ediacara ii. Palaeoenvironment and fossilization iii. Composition of the fauna iv. Paleobiology v. Other occurrences of Late Precambrian Metazoa in Australia vi. The Nama fauna of southwestern Africa (Namibia) and possible equivalents in South America vii. Late Precambrian Metazoa from the Northern Hemisphere viii. The concept of Ediacarian fauna 3. The Precambrian diversification of the Metazoa in the light of paleozoology: i. The significance of the Ediacarian fauna for metazoan phylogeny ii. Re-assessment of the incompleteness of the palaeontological record iii. The record of the Late Precambrian fauna applied to problems of phylogeny iv. Occupation of the marine environment: habitats and habits v. Conclusions on the physical environments of the Late Precambrian Metazoa vi. The taxonomy of emerging diversity: the meaning of phyla vii. Rates of evolution 4. The Precambrian-Cambrian transition: i. Stratigraphic scales: boundaries and historical transitions ii. The fate of the Ediacarian faunas: extinction, survival, replacement iii. The Cambrian Period as the time of the first shelly fossils iv. the oldest Cambrian faunas and their evolutionary antecedents v. Agglutinated, chitinous and mineralized body components in Ediacarian fossils and in some successors vi. Extrinsic and internal factors of biomineralisation and its functional significance vii. Environmental changes at the Precambrian-Cambrian transition viii. Increase in diversity of trace fossils ix. Consequences and causes of evolutionary diversification 5. Emerging animal life: thoughts on interactions of lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere: i. Interactions of intrinsic and environmental factors in the emergent biosphere ii. Metazoan expansion in the marine biosphere: a three-stage process iii. Interactions in the light of plate tectonics iv. Animal life: past, present and future Appendix References Dictionaries of scientific terms Author index Subject index.