Paleobiology

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 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 DNA and RNA samples offers much promise, as does the biometric construction of phylogenetic trees.

An investigator in this field is known as a paleobiologist.

Important research areas

 * Paleobotany applies 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 uses the methods and principles of paleobiology to understand fauna, both vertebrates and invertebrates. See also vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology, as well as paleoanthropology.


 * Micropaleontology applies paleobiologic principles and methods to archaea, bacteria, protists and microscopic pollen/spores. See also microfossils and palynology.


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


 * Paleoecology examines past ecosystems, climates, and geographies so as to better comprehend prehistoric life.


 * Paleotaphonomy analyzes 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 analyzes 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 studies 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 examines 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 of the Amadeus Basin, Central Australia.

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."

Paleobiologic journals

 * Biology and Geology
 * Historical Biology
 * Palaios
 * Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
 * Paleobiology
 * Paleoceanography