Richard Cowen 
History of Life 

This text is designed for students and anyone else with an
interest in the history of life on our planet. The author describes
the biological evolution of Earth’s organisms, and
reconstructs their adaptations to the life they led, and the
ecology and environment in which they functioned. On the grand
scale, Earth is a constantly changing planet, continually
presenting organisms with challenges. Changing geography, climate,
atmosphere, oceanic and land environments set a stage in which
organisms interact with their environments and one another, with
evolutionary change an inevitable result. The organisms themselves
in turn can change global environments: oxygen in our atmosphere is
all produced by photosynthesis, for example. The interplay between
a changing Earth and its evolving organisms is the underlying theme
of the book.



The book has a dedicated website which explores additional
enriching information and discussion, and provides or points to the
art for the book and many other images useful for teaching. See: href=’http://www.wiley.com/go/cowen/historyoflife’>www.wiley.com/go/cowen/historyoflife.

Зміст

Preface vii

About the Companion Website x

1 The Origin of Life on Earth 1

2 Earliest Life on Earth 17

3 Sex and Nuclei: Eukaryotes 30

4 The Evolution of Metazoans 41

5 The Metazoan Radiation 54

6 Changing Life in a Changing World 66

7 The Early Vertebrates 84

8 Leaving the Water 98

9 Tetrapods and Amniotes 112

10 Early Amniotes and Thermoregulation 122

11 The Triassic Takeover 134

12 Dinosaurs 144

13 The Evolution of Flight 164

14 The Modernization of Land and Sea 183

15 The Origin of Mammals 199

16 The End of the Dinosaurs 212

17 Cenozoic Mammals 220

18 Geography and Evolution 236

19 Primates 249

20 Evolving Toward Humans 259

21 Life in the Ice Age 276

Index 294

Про автора

Richard Cowen learned how to write and think critically at
Cambridge University, and how to teach and think creatively at the
University of California, Davis. He received a campus Distinguished
Teaching Award in 1993 and designed the course ‘History of
Life’ there. The book was written specifically for that
course, and has gone on to become a best-selling textbook.