The Evolutionary biology of extinct and extant organisms/ Subir Ranjan Kundu

Includes bibliographical references and index

Preface -- Acknowledgement -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. The transitional features of 'missing link' illuminate the molecular nuts and bolts of biological evolution -- Chapter 2. If and when evolution is the ultimate essence of life: what is the evolutionary identity of the missing link -- Chapter 3. Walking with cynodont to explore the uncharted evolutionary trail of mammalian lineage diverged out of reptilian -- Chapter 4. One small step for amphibious fish one evolutionary leap for moving tetrapods on earth -- Chapter 5. Evolutionary origin of amniotic egg: the transitional form between amphibians and reptiles in the doubt clear session -- Chapter 6. When contemporary discoveries pushes the bony fish to ancestral or evolutionary back seat and discreetly pushes cartilaginous fish in the advanced or front seat -- Chapter 7. Hemichordates: the bilaterians lineage (also known as phylum- deuterostome) in the evolutionary crossroads of developmental biology -- Chapter 8. Cambrian evolution of Onychophorans: in the evolutionary labyrinth of arthropods annelids and molluscs -- Chapter 9. The extent of ctenophore uniqueness - distinctly recognised to be "quasi-Cnidarians" or stunted bilaterians -- Chapter 10. The Protistan link in transition: down the evolutionary tail from unicellular protozoa to multicellular metazoa -- Chapter 11. Evolutionary mysticism of euglena: a sagacious soul of a plant in the body of an animal -- Chapter 12. Virus: a stepping stone in transition in the course of evolutionary journey from the world of "nonliving" to the world of "living" entity -- Chapter 13. Once there was an ancestor between humans and apeas: in the quest for the enigmatic missing link -- Chapter 14. Mitochondrial Eva and y-chromosomal Adam on planet earth: humanity's metaphoric missing link between prehistoric past and contemporary present

The Evolutionary Biology of Extinct and Extant Organisms offers a thorough and detailed narration of the journey of biological evolution and its major transitional links to the biological world, which began with paleontological exploration of extinct organisms and now carries on with reviews of phylogenomic footprint reviews of extant, living fossils. This book moves through the defining evolutionary stepping stones starting with the evolutionary changes in prokaryotic, aquatic organisms over 4 billion years ago to the emergence of the modern human species in Earth’s Anthropocene. The book begins with an overview of the processes of evolutionary fitness, the epicenter of the principles of evolutionary biology. Whether through natural or experimental occurrence, evolutionary fitness has been found to be the cardinal instance of evolutionary links in an organism between its ancestral and contemporary states. The book then goes on to detail evolutionary trails and lineages of groups of organisms including mammalians, reptilians, and various fish. The final section of the book provides a look back at the evolutionary journey of "nonliving" or extinct organisms, versus the modern-day transition to "living" or extant organisms. The Evolutionary Biology of Extinct and Extant Organisms is the ideal resource for any researcher or advanced student in evolutionary studies, ranging from evolutionary biology to general life sciences.