“Read one paper and take notes on it every day.” Jack Sepkoski gave me this advice in 1983 when I was working in his lab as a summer intern. No mention of key journals, or important authors — just read. I can’t say that I’ve been able to read a paper every day for the last 30 years, but I still aim to achieve the goal of his message — read continuously and broadly.
I believe students should have a basic understanding of the foundations of paleontology, but how is it best achieved? I still think students should strive to meet the paper-a-day challenge, but is it the best way to develop a broad view of the field? How about reading books? What are the foundational texts in paleontology? If I recommended ten books to students before embarking on their dissertations, which books would I pick? I came up with the following ten books as a starter for discussion. This list should not be seen as the ten best books in paleontology, rather as the ten books that give a broad understanding of the field. The list is tilted slightly toward marine paleobiology, reflecting my interests. To make it on the list, a book had to provide a broad summary of an important area of paleontology and identify the fundamental research questions that still confront us today.
1. Major Features of Evolution, G. G. Simpson, 1953, Columbia University Press. — Major Features is a founding text in paleobiology. It is a significantly expanded revision of Simpson’s 1944 classic Tempo and Mode of Evolution, which is regarded as paleontology’s contribution to the modern evolutionary synthesis. Major Features expanded and solidified the fundamental role of paleontology in evolutionary theory. It is probably worth reading both books to understand the early development of paleobiology. Two gems in these books are the idea of adaptive zones and the quantitative approach to taxonomic and morphologic rates of evolution. In a class I had at the University of Chicago taught by Leigh Van Valen, he had us read Major Features. That’s as good a reason as any to put it on the list.
2. Ontogeny and Phylogeny, S. J. Gould, 1977, Belknap Press. — In Ontogeny and Phylogeny, Gould’s first book, and perhaps his best, he argued for the importance of heterochrony — “changes in the relative time of appearance and rate of development for characters already present in ancestors” — as a primary force in macroevolution. In the first half of the book, Gould traced the idea of a relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny from Aristotle through Agassiz, von Baer, and Haeckel. In the last half of the book Gould articulated his vision of heterochrony and macroevolution. Ontogeny and Phylogeny inspired me early in my career. It is a well written, scholarly treatment of heterochrony that must be read by those interested in macroevolution.
3. Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, S. M. Stanley, 1979, W. H. Freeman and Company. — Based on the premise of punctuated equilibrium, Stanley argued in Macroevolution that long-term evolutionary trends are not driven by phyletic change, but rather by the differential production and extinction of species. He called this process species selection and suggested that it was analogous to natural selection, but with species as the unit of selection, rather than the individual. He argued further that macroevolution was therefore decoupled from microevolution. This idea was an important concept in the development of the hierarchical theory of evolution in the early 1980’s.
4. Evolutionary Paleoecology of the Marine Biosphere, 1973, J. W. Valentine, Prentice Hall, Inc. — In this ambitious book, Valentine attempted to synthesize paleoecology with paleobiology. Evolutionary Paleoecology is organized around Valentine’s concept of the hierarchy of ecological units: individual, population, community, province, and total marine biosphere. Valentine raised all the major questions still facing the field today, such as niche evolution, diversity regulation over a range of scales, and long-term ecological trends in the marine biosphere. Every student of paleoecology should read this book.
5. Evolution and Escalation: An Ecological History of Life, G. Vermeij, 1987, Princeton University Press. — In Evolution and Escalation, Vermeij made the bold claim that the responses of species to competition and predation played a central role in driving long-term evolutionary trends in the history of life. The escalation hypothesis, as Vermeij calls it, states that the evolutionary history of plants and animals and their enemies should be marked by changes in morphology and behavior that reflect predator-prey interactions. Vermeij draws on his encyclopedic knowledge of modern and fossil life (emphasis on mollusks) to make his case. This book inspired a large body of work testing the implications of escalation for the fossil record in a wide range of taxonomic groups.
6. Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?, D. M. Raup, 1991, W. W. Norton and Co. New York. — In simple and terse prose, Raup illuminates the main concepts behind species extinctions and their causes. He presents two fundamental ideas worth considering. First, Raup introduced Gambler’s Ruin, which is the idea that given even odds, the gambler is guaranteed to go broke eventually. By analogy with Gambler’s Ruin, he argued that given constant probabilities of origination and extinction, diversity of taxonomic groups will follow a random walk to extinction. Second, Raup introduced the idea of the first strike to explain the extinction of widespread, abundant species with many millions of individuals. He argues that the only way to make these well-established species go extinct is for some extreme environmental perturbation (e.g., bolide impact) to reduce populations in size and geographic distribution so that other causes may push the species to extinction. Bad Genes or Bad Luck is essential reading for students interested in extinction past and present.
7. Macroecology, J. H. Brown, 1995, University of Chicago Press. — In Macroecology, Brown outlined an approach to ecology that was based on the analysis of large datasets to investigate large-scale patterns of species distribution and abundance. Brown argued that history matters in understanding the processes that determine the distribution and abundance of species and so paleontology has much to offer. Macroecology is full of research ideas that are testable with the fossil record.
8. Systematics and the Fossil Record, A. B. Smith, 1994, Blackwell Science. — Smith presented a thorough introduction to phylogenetic analysis and its application to the fossil record. Smith explained difficult subjects (species concepts, phylogenetic analysis, biostratigraphic data, construction of evolutionary trees) in simple language and showed how they combine to shape patterns of diversity and morphologic disparity in the fossil record. This book is well written, and with fewer than 200 pages it is a good place to start for students who need to learn about the importance of phylogenetic analysis of fossils to document evolutionary patterns.
9. The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, D. V. Ager, 1981, Macmillan Press. — The stratigraphic record contains temporal and environmental information that is essential to interpret fossil material. This short book summarizes principles of sediment accumulation and temporal resolution that all paleontologists need to know. It introduces many important concepts like the geologic record is more gap than record, and that sediment accumulation generally occurs in short-lived events (e.g. storm beds) rather than gradual accumulation over long time intervals.
10. Rereading the Fossil Record, D. Sepkoski, 2011, University of Chicago Press. —Sepkoski documented the rise of paleobiology from the 1940s to the 1980s as a vigorous discipline that informs evolutionary biology and ecology about patterns and processes in the history of life. Every graduate student in paleontology should read this book. I was fortunate to know many of the main players as mentors, colleagues, and friends. My PhD advisor, Jack Sepkoski (father of the author), figures prominently in the book. Jack passed away at the age of fifty, before his career was done. His contributions to the field were immense and are summarized in this book.
Two books were left off this list, but for different reasons. First, is the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. It seems so obvious to me that every paleontologist should read this book, that I didn’t feel the need to mention it. Second, is my recent book, Stratigraphic Paleobiology (2012, University of Chicago Press), co-authored with Steve Holland. Of course I think students should read our book, that’s why we wrote it, but in a blog post about ten foundational texts in paleontology it would be presumptuous on my part to include it. Perhaps it will make it on someone’s list in twenty years. I would be thrilled.
So that’s my list. What did I miss? Let me know and I’ll post again with the most popular recommendations.
Contact Mark Patzkowsky at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @markpatzkowsky.
I believe students should have a basic understanding of the foundations of paleontology, but how is it best achieved? I still think students should strive to meet the paper-a-day challenge, but is it the best way to develop a broad view of the field? How about reading books? What are the foundational texts in paleontology? If I recommended ten books to students before embarking on their dissertations, which books would I pick? I came up with the following ten books as a starter for discussion. This list should not be seen as the ten best books in paleontology, rather as the ten books that give a broad understanding of the field. The list is tilted slightly toward marine paleobiology, reflecting my interests. To make it on the list, a book had to provide a broad summary of an important area of paleontology and identify the fundamental research questions that still confront us today.
1. Major Features of Evolution, G. G. Simpson, 1953, Columbia University Press. — Major Features is a founding text in paleobiology. It is a significantly expanded revision of Simpson’s 1944 classic Tempo and Mode of Evolution, which is regarded as paleontology’s contribution to the modern evolutionary synthesis. Major Features expanded and solidified the fundamental role of paleontology in evolutionary theory. It is probably worth reading both books to understand the early development of paleobiology. Two gems in these books are the idea of adaptive zones and the quantitative approach to taxonomic and morphologic rates of evolution. In a class I had at the University of Chicago taught by Leigh Van Valen, he had us read Major Features. That’s as good a reason as any to put it on the list.
2. Ontogeny and Phylogeny, S. J. Gould, 1977, Belknap Press. — In Ontogeny and Phylogeny, Gould’s first book, and perhaps his best, he argued for the importance of heterochrony — “changes in the relative time of appearance and rate of development for characters already present in ancestors” — as a primary force in macroevolution. In the first half of the book, Gould traced the idea of a relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny from Aristotle through Agassiz, von Baer, and Haeckel. In the last half of the book Gould articulated his vision of heterochrony and macroevolution. Ontogeny and Phylogeny inspired me early in my career. It is a well written, scholarly treatment of heterochrony that must be read by those interested in macroevolution.
3. Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, S. M. Stanley, 1979, W. H. Freeman and Company. — Based on the premise of punctuated equilibrium, Stanley argued in Macroevolution that long-term evolutionary trends are not driven by phyletic change, but rather by the differential production and extinction of species. He called this process species selection and suggested that it was analogous to natural selection, but with species as the unit of selection, rather than the individual. He argued further that macroevolution was therefore decoupled from microevolution. This idea was an important concept in the development of the hierarchical theory of evolution in the early 1980’s.
4. Evolutionary Paleoecology of the Marine Biosphere, 1973, J. W. Valentine, Prentice Hall, Inc. — In this ambitious book, Valentine attempted to synthesize paleoecology with paleobiology. Evolutionary Paleoecology is organized around Valentine’s concept of the hierarchy of ecological units: individual, population, community, province, and total marine biosphere. Valentine raised all the major questions still facing the field today, such as niche evolution, diversity regulation over a range of scales, and long-term ecological trends in the marine biosphere. Every student of paleoecology should read this book.
5. Evolution and Escalation: An Ecological History of Life, G. Vermeij, 1987, Princeton University Press. — In Evolution and Escalation, Vermeij made the bold claim that the responses of species to competition and predation played a central role in driving long-term evolutionary trends in the history of life. The escalation hypothesis, as Vermeij calls it, states that the evolutionary history of plants and animals and their enemies should be marked by changes in morphology and behavior that reflect predator-prey interactions. Vermeij draws on his encyclopedic knowledge of modern and fossil life (emphasis on mollusks) to make his case. This book inspired a large body of work testing the implications of escalation for the fossil record in a wide range of taxonomic groups.
6. Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck?, D. M. Raup, 1991, W. W. Norton and Co. New York. — In simple and terse prose, Raup illuminates the main concepts behind species extinctions and their causes. He presents two fundamental ideas worth considering. First, Raup introduced Gambler’s Ruin, which is the idea that given even odds, the gambler is guaranteed to go broke eventually. By analogy with Gambler’s Ruin, he argued that given constant probabilities of origination and extinction, diversity of taxonomic groups will follow a random walk to extinction. Second, Raup introduced the idea of the first strike to explain the extinction of widespread, abundant species with many millions of individuals. He argues that the only way to make these well-established species go extinct is for some extreme environmental perturbation (e.g., bolide impact) to reduce populations in size and geographic distribution so that other causes may push the species to extinction. Bad Genes or Bad Luck is essential reading for students interested in extinction past and present.
7. Macroecology, J. H. Brown, 1995, University of Chicago Press. — In Macroecology, Brown outlined an approach to ecology that was based on the analysis of large datasets to investigate large-scale patterns of species distribution and abundance. Brown argued that history matters in understanding the processes that determine the distribution and abundance of species and so paleontology has much to offer. Macroecology is full of research ideas that are testable with the fossil record.
8. Systematics and the Fossil Record, A. B. Smith, 1994, Blackwell Science. — Smith presented a thorough introduction to phylogenetic analysis and its application to the fossil record. Smith explained difficult subjects (species concepts, phylogenetic analysis, biostratigraphic data, construction of evolutionary trees) in simple language and showed how they combine to shape patterns of diversity and morphologic disparity in the fossil record. This book is well written, and with fewer than 200 pages it is a good place to start for students who need to learn about the importance of phylogenetic analysis of fossils to document evolutionary patterns.
9. The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, D. V. Ager, 1981, Macmillan Press. — The stratigraphic record contains temporal and environmental information that is essential to interpret fossil material. This short book summarizes principles of sediment accumulation and temporal resolution that all paleontologists need to know. It introduces many important concepts like the geologic record is more gap than record, and that sediment accumulation generally occurs in short-lived events (e.g. storm beds) rather than gradual accumulation over long time intervals.
10. Rereading the Fossil Record, D. Sepkoski, 2011, University of Chicago Press. —Sepkoski documented the rise of paleobiology from the 1940s to the 1980s as a vigorous discipline that informs evolutionary biology and ecology about patterns and processes in the history of life. Every graduate student in paleontology should read this book. I was fortunate to know many of the main players as mentors, colleagues, and friends. My PhD advisor, Jack Sepkoski (father of the author), figures prominently in the book. Jack passed away at the age of fifty, before his career was done. His contributions to the field were immense and are summarized in this book.
Two books were left off this list, but for different reasons. First, is the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. It seems so obvious to me that every paleontologist should read this book, that I didn’t feel the need to mention it. Second, is my recent book, Stratigraphic Paleobiology (2012, University of Chicago Press), co-authored with Steve Holland. Of course I think students should read our book, that’s why we wrote it, but in a blog post about ten foundational texts in paleontology it would be presumptuous on my part to include it. Perhaps it will make it on someone’s list in twenty years. I would be thrilled.
So that’s my list. What did I miss? Let me know and I’ll post again with the most popular recommendations.
Contact Mark Patzkowsky at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @markpatzkowsky.