Extinction and Phylogeny

More than 99 percent of all life that has ever existed on this planet is extinct. Moreover, human acceleration of the extinction of species has created a crisis in biodiversity. How can the history of past life be retrieved? How does this history bear on our understanding of the organization and evolution of present-day species? These questions are addressed in Extinction and Phylogeny.
This book offers new and original research by leading authorities on evolutionary and systematic biology, who rank among the best of the dynamic investigators of botany, zoology, and paleontology. This exciting book includes chapters about the recovery of information from living biota, taking into account the limitations of sampling and the steady rate of contemporary extinction of taxa. Complementary discussions elucidate problems involving the analysis of data sets of variable completeness--for example, partially preserved fossils or patchy samples of extant taxa.
Extinction and Phylogeny balances empirical issues with the theoretical and applies cladistic methodology. This detailed text will prove to be a leading-edge book for professional and student biologists alike and for those in related disciplines. The relationship between extinction and phylogenetic theory must be understood if we are to explain existing biological diversity and effectively assess the declining biodiversity of our planet in the decades to come.

Stands apart from the many other recent volumes on extinction with its emphasis on the importance of systematic data in the analysis of the stratigraphic record and the distribution of species in space and time. These chapters carry ideas that will have lasting consequences for paleontological theory and method.