The palaeobiology is responsible for the study of fossil organisms in order to understand the life of the past. This area of study is a specialty of paleontology that uses biology as a complement. This is how the way of life of ancient species can be glimpsed.
The information that is sought has to do with the forms of interaction, evolution and connection with the environment that living beings of past eras had. The data also helps identify major climatic and ecological changes that have happened on Earth.
Fossil of Mecochirus longimanatus, an extinct crustacean from the Jurassic.
Didier Descouens
Within the same paleobiology there are also other sub-branches that vary according to their object of study. These include plants, animals, specific types of fossils, ancient traces such as footprints, etc.
The study of fossils is important to understand the evolutionary processes and the different trends in biodiversity throughout the history of the planet. The idea of knowing the past in order to understand the present is very remarkable in all lines of research that are related to paleontological research in each of its different branches.
History of paleobiology
In order to talk about paleobiology, it is necessary to link it with paleontological practice whose advances in the 20th century allowed the emergence of this new branch of research. Much of what helped the birth of paleobiology was the growing interest of researchers in the evolution and ecology of living things in prehistory.
Paleobiology was founded in 1912 by Othenio Abel, an Austrian paleontologist, this being one of his main contributions in his career. He formulated paleobiology as a branch that combines the methods and advances of biology with those of paleontology. This proposal works in order to understand the ways of life and the changes through the ages, taking evolution as one of the main themes.
It should be noted that Othenio Abel used as a basis the Lamarckian theory of evolution, which tends to classify the environment that surrounds an organism as the main element that influences the development of its life and subsequent evolution. The environment, its climatic and geological composition and other aspects that define a way in which a living being moves to achieve its survival.
It was in the seventies where the discipline began to take hold much more. Several American paleontologists such as Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould began to pay attention to evolutionary stagnation and the possibility that the cause of this was that speciation had occurred in brief geological changes.
Other studies related to the passage from paleontology to a new discipline such as paleobiology have to do precisely with the geological issue. Plate tectonics is usually one of the theories associated with speciation, as it is a phenomenon capable of causing subdivisions of species.
Specialties
Just as paleobiology is a branch for paleontological study, it also has various specialties to complement its studies. The specialties are defined by the species or elements that serve as the object of study.
Palaeozoology, for example, deals with the study of fossils of extinct animals and emphasizes the taxonomy or classification of species. Paleobotany, for its part, focuses on plant organisms. The study for microscopic fossils and nanofossils is also discussed in the discipline of micropaleontology, whose objective is to identify the evolution of the biosphere through time.
There are other specialties such as paleoychnology that is responsible for studying some ancient traces such as animal tracks. An example is the dinosaur footprints, which have become a particularly common object of study in this branch.
Paleoecology is also related to paleobiology for its study of the ecology of creatures of the past and its purpose of discovering the environments and ecosystems of those times.
Lastly, paleobiogeography can be mentioned, which focuses on analyzing the spatial distribution of living beings and the causes that generated those specific locations.
The discoveries of paleobiology
With paleobiology, the study of fossil data was also based on understanding the forms of life and evolution of living beings in remote eras. Also added to this was the importance of having new information regarding the types of environment in which they developed and all the changes that were generated over time.
However, it is the discoveries of paleontology that then allow a study of fossils from paleobiology, since the latter is a derivation of the first.
Some of the more recent researchers include the late German paleontologist, Adolf Seilacher. His studies stand out for focusing on ichnofossils, the evolution of species and their morphology.
Among Seilacher's most outstanding works, one can mention his study of fossils from the Ediacaran geological period, which date to approximately 635 million years ago.
In his career he demonstrated how through the tracks you can find clues about the lifestyle of the animals of the past. One example is the trilobite footprints found on an expedition to Pakistan.
Trilobite fossil.
Estonian Museum of Natural History
Also the conservation of fossils was an important factor for his research. Seilacher understood that the way in which a fossil trace is preserved speaks of the way of life of an animal, the conditions in which it lived or the behavior it maintained.
For example, a footprint can speak of the morphology of an organism, even if a fossil record of its bony body structure is not found. It is possible to find clues about the environment that surrounded him and how he was related to it. It should be noted that many of the ichnofossils usually come from aquatic animals.
References
- Sánchez M, MacLeod N (2014). Issues in Paleobiology: a global view. Interviews and essays. Research and Science No. 46 7. Recovered from investigacionyciencia.es
- Paleoychnology of the Cameros dinosaurs. Geological and Mining Institute of Spain. Recovered from igme.es
- Paleobiology. National Museum of Natural Sciences. Recovered from mncn.csic.es
- García P, Montellano M, Quiroz S (2002). Paleobiology. Selected readings. Faculty of Sciences UNAM. Recovered from Libros.unam.mx
- Kelley P, Wilson M, Richard Laws (2013) From paleontology to paleobiology: A half-century of progress in understanding life history. Recovered from pubs.geoscienceworld.org
- Rafferty J. Ediacaran Period. Geochronology. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Recovered from britannica.com
- Briggs D. (2014). Adolf Seilacher's fossil record. Recovered from onlinelibrary.wiley.com