Journal
TRENDS IN ECOLOGY & EVOLUTION
Volume 26, Issue 2, Pages 81-87Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE LONDON
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2010.11.012
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- NERC [NE/I005978/1, NE/H009914/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/I005978/1, NE/H009914/1] Funding Source: researchfish
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Animals do not just occupy the modern biosphere, they permeate its structure and define how it works. Their unique combination of organ-grade multicellularity, motility and heterotrophic habit makes them powerful geobiological agents, imposing myriad feedbacks on nutrient cycling, productivity and environment. Most significantly, animals have 'engineered' the biosphere over evolutionary time, forcing the diversification of, for example, phytoplankton, land plants, trophic structure, large body size, bioturbation, biomineralization and indeed the evolutionary process itself. This review surveys how animals contribute to the modern world and provides a basis for reconstructing ancient ecosystems. Earlier, less animal-influenced biospheres worked quite differently from the one currently occupied, with the Ediacaran-Cambrian radiation of organ-grade animals marking a fundamental shift in macroecological and macroevolutionary expression.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available