Area cladograms produced by parsimony analysis of endemicity illustrate historically developed biogeographical associations among Caradocian, Ashgillian, Llandoverian, and Wenlockian bryozoans. Areas in North America, Siberia, and Baltica were organized into three provinces and 12 biomes over a time interval of 35 million years. Six of these biomes belonged to the North American-Siberian Province and became extinct during the Ashgillian. Three biomes represent a successional series of biogeographical associations in the Late Ordovician of Baltica, and the middle biome of this succession is most closely related to that of the Wenlockian platform in North America. All four Silurian biomes are represented in Late Ordovician local areas, indicating that the associations important in the recovery radiation were already in existence prior to the extinction events. Three of these four biomes expanded their geographic extent in the wake of the Late Ordovician extinctions. Several biome extinction and replacement events took place during lowstands of sea level, suggesting that biogeographic reorganizations took place as a consequence of habitat loss in epeiric seas. Biome development largely depended on the extent of major lithotopes and their intersections with deep ocean and climatic barriers. The loss of regional habitats, associated with marine regression, was a key factor in biome extinction and reorganization, and indicates that biogeography played a significant role in the Late Ordovician mass extinctions and Silurian recovery radiations. Vicariance hypotheses are needed to account for the development of barriers subdividing ancestral areas, whereas hypotheses of congruent dispersal are required to explain the appearance of biomes in geographically disjunct areas.

The principal conch parameters—whorl expansion rate, whorl overlap rate, umbilical width, and whorl thickness—of Early and Middle Devonian ammonoids have been extensively investigated. Stratophenetic analyses show long-term trends in the transformations of these characters over long periods of time, but sudden and rapid reversals can also be observed. On the basis of these four quantifiable conch parameters and supplementary qualitative characters, ten ammonoid morphs were distinguished. Reconstruction of the evolutionary history of these morphs reflects the existence of two major phylogenetic lineages, both already visible in Early Devonian faunas. The agoniatitid lineage is characterized by slow character development and leads to the Frasnian gephuroceratids; the anarcestid lineage displays rapid morphological evolution that leads to the late Givetian pharciceratids as well as the Middle and Late Devonian tornoceratids. Morphological evolution is interpreted as partly limited by geometrical and physical constraints.

Previous studies of overall arthropod disparity have compared Cambrian and Recent biotas, without considering taxa of intermediate age. This study explored morphological diversity among Carboniferous arthropods, primarily from the well-known Westphalian Mazon Creek Lagerstätte. Over 100 arthropod species, belonging to 48 orders, were examined. The data set is composed of nearly equal numbers of crustacean, arachnid, and insect species, with lower numbers of merostomes. Trilobites have not been found at Mazon Creek. However, some Late Carboniferous trilobite species were included in order to obtain a more representative picture of global Carboniferous arthropod disparity.

The absence, presence, or state of 66 shared characters was recorded for each species, as well as individual autapomorphies. Overall disparity was determined from the Euclidean distance analysis between taxa or variance along principal coordinates analyses (PCO) axes. Results indicate that arthropod disparity has not been greatly reduced throughout the Phanerozoic as was previously suggested. However, the regions of occupied morphospace have rotated over time.

A theoretical morphologic model defining ligament formation in the Bivalvia is introduced. It is based on the spacing of a lamellar layer, the spacing of a fibrous layer, and the relative growth rate of the expanding ligament with respect to enlargement of the ligamental area. Most of the diverse patterns of bivalve ligaments are successfully modeled by computer simulations. Wide intraspecific variation of the ligamental pattern is observed in an arcid species, Tegillarca granosa. This appears to be a consequence of allometric change of morphogenetic parameters during growth, adjusted to maintain the relationship between ligament strength and shell weight. The distribution of actual ligaments, which does not fill the theoretical morphospace, shows potential evolutionary pathways of bivalve ligaments. Thus, it implies phylogenetic relationships between ligament types from the viewpoint of pattern formation.

Quantitative estimates of time-averaging in marine shell accumulations available to date are limited primarily to aragonitic mollusk shells. We assessed time-averaging in Holocene assemblages of calcitic brachiopod shells by direct dating of individual specimens of the terebratulid brachiopod Bouchardia rosea. The data were collected from exceptional (brachiopod-rich) shell assemblages, occurring surficially on a tropical mixed carbonate-siliciclastic shelf (the Southeast Brazilian Bight, SW Atlantic), a setting that provides a good climatic and environmental analog for many Paleozoic brachiopod shell beds of North America and Europe. A total of 82 individual brachiopod shells, collected from four shallow (5–25 m) nearshore (<2.5 km from the shore) localities, were dated by using amino acid racemization (D-alloisoleucine/L-isoleucine value) calibrated with five AMS-radiocarbon dates (r² = 0.933). This is the first study to demonstrate that amino acid racemization methods can provide accurate and precise ages for individual shells of calcitic brachiopods.

The dated shells vary in age from modern to 3000 years, with a standard deviation of 690 years. The age distribution is strongly right-skewed: the young shells dominate the dated specimens and older shells are increasingly less common. However, the four localities display significant differences in the range of time-averaging and the form of the age distribution. The dated shells vary notably in the quality of preservation, but there is no significant correlation between taphonomic condition and age, either for individual shells or at assemblage level.

These results demonstrate that fossil brachiopods may show considerable time-averaging, but the scale and nature of that mixing may vary greatly among sites. Moreover, taphonomic condition is not a reliable indicator of pre-burial history of individual brachiopod shells or the scale of temporal mixing within the entire assemblage. The results obtained for brachiopods are strikingly similar to results previously documented for mollusks and suggest that differences in mineralogy and shell microstructure are unlikely to be the primary factors controlling the nature and scale of time-averaging. Environmental factors and local fluctuations in populations of shell-producing organisms are more likely to be the principal determinants of time-averaging in marine benthic shelly assemblages. The long-term survival of brachiopod shells is incongruent with the rapid shell destruction observed in taphonomic experiments. The results support the taphonomic model that shells remain protected below (but perhaps near) the surface through their early taphonomic history. They may be brought back up to the surface intermittently by bioturbation and physical reworking, but only for short periods of time. This model explains the striking similarities in time-averaging among different types of organisms and the lack of correlation between time-since-death and shell taphonomy.

Accurate estimates of body mass in fossil taxa are fundamental to paleobiological reconstruction. Predictive equations derived from correlation with craniodental and body mass data in extant taxa are the most commonly used, but they can be unreliable for species whose morphology departs widely from that of living relatives. Estimates based on proximal limb-bone circumference data are more accurate but are inapplicable where postcranial remains are unknown. In this study we assess the efficacy of predicting body mass in Australian fossil marsupials by using an alternative correlate, endocranial volume. Body mass estimates for a species with highly unusual craniodental anatomy, the Pleistocene marsupial lion (Thylacoleo carnifex), fall within the range determined on the basis of proximal limb-bone circumference data, whereas estimates based on dental data are highly dubious. For all marsupial taxa considered, allometric relationships have small confidence intervals, and percent prediction errors are comparable to those of the best predictors using craniodental data. Although application is limited in some respects, this method may provide a useful means of estimating body mass for species with atypical craniodental or postcranial morphologies and taxa unrepresented by postcranial remains. A trend toward increased encephalization may constrain the method's predictive power with respect to many, but not all, placental clades.

Among polygynous mammals, a heightened risk of mortality is linked to the intensity of intragender competition and life-history stages, such as sexual maturity, where inexperienced individuals are vulnerable to the aggressive behaviors of dominant individuals. In this respect, the age- and sex-specific mortality patterns found in fossil assemblages could be informative of sociality in extinct species. This possibility was explored by comparing the age- and sex-specific demography of attritional rhinoceros assemblages, Teleoceras proterum (n = 2) and Aphelops malacorhinus (n = 1), from pond and fluvial sedimentary facies of the late Miocene of Florida, with modern skeletal assemblages of extant rhinos and other large mammals.

Subadult and young adult males (between 15–40% of potential life span) numerically dominate the Teleoceras assemblages, indicating a disproportionately high frequency of localized young male mortality. The estimated age-specific mortality rates indicate elevated mortality risks among males at an age equivalent to the years encompassing male physiological and social maturity in modern rhinos, a pattern that suggests a high frequency of socially mediated mortality. Age-specific mortality rate curves of modern black rhino populations are essentially identical. A high frequency of intraspecific fight-related mortality characterizes modern rhinos and strongly suggests that elevated Teleoceras mortality was influenced by intragender competition. Although Teleoceras is widely believed to have been the analog of extant Hippopotamus, mortality rates of young males are not elevated in a modern Hippopotamus population. The Aphelops assemblage is not significantly male-biased and does not indicate elevated mortality rates of young males, suggesting that aspects of Aphelops sociality differed from modern rhinos. Although the nature of Aphelops sociality is not clear, aggression toward young males may have been less extreme or less frequent in Aphelops populations.

Skeletal remains of Eocene Archaeoceti provide the only direct and unequivocal evidence of the evolutionary transition of whales from land to sea. Archaeocete skeletons complete enough to be informative about locomotion are rare (principally Rodhocetus and Dorudon), and these deserve to be studied in comparison to the full spectrum of semiaquatic mammals. A principal components analysis of 14 trunk and limb measurements for 50 species of living semiaquatic mammals reduces the observed variation to three informative axes. The first principal axis (PC-I) represents overall size (water mice and shrews have the lowest scores on this axis and the hippopotamus has the highest); the second axis (PC-II) represents a spectrum of aquatic adaptation (seals have the lowest scores and tapirs have the highest); and the third principal axis (PC-III) represents a spectrum ranging from hindlimb- to forelimb-dominated locomotion (sea otters have the lowest scores and the platypus the highest).

Dorudon fits poorly into a morphospace defined solely by living semiaquatic mammals; thus a second 53-species set was analyzed, adding an anthracothere to represent an artiodactyl ancestral morphology and two species of archaeocetes to represent successive stages of early whale evolution. This addition has little effect on the first two principal axes but changes the third substantially. PC-III now represents a contrast of lumbus- (and presumably tail-) dominated versus hindlimb-dominated locomotion (Dorudon has the lowest score and Rodhocetus the highest, whereas the otter shrew has the lowest score among living mammals and the desman the highest). Mammals that are more aquatic have a shorter ilium and femur combined with longer manual and pedal phalanges, whereas the reverse is true for more terrestrial taxa. Lumbus- and tail-dominated swimmers tend to have a longer lumbus combined with shorter pedal elements, whereas the reverse is true for hindlimb-dominated swimmers. Trunk and limb proportions of early middle Eocene Rodhocetus are most similar to those of the living, highly aquatic, foot-powered desmans. Trunk and limb proportions of late middle Eocene Dorudon indicate that it was a lumbus-and-tail-powered swimmer specialized in the direction of modern whales. Thus it appears that the land-to-sea transition in whale evolution involved at least two distinct phases of locomotor specialization: (1) hindlimb domination for drag-based pelvic paddling in protocetids (Rodhocetus), with tail elongation for stability, followed by (2) lumbus domination for lift-based caudal undulation and oscillation in basilosaurids (Dorudon). Rates of evolution in both phases of this change of adaptive zone are about an order of magnitude higher than background rates for the timescale involved.