Ediacara fossils document an important evolutionary episode just before the Cambrian explosion and hold critical information about the early evolution of macroscopic and complex multicellular life. They also represent an enduring controversy in paleontology. How are the Ediacara fossils related to living animals? How did they live? Do they share any evolutionary patterns with other life forms? ...

Subseafloor sedimentary environments harbor remarkably diverse microbial communities. However, it remains unknown if the deeply buried fossils in these sediments play ecological roles in deep microbial habitats, or whether the microbial communities inhabiting such fossils differ from those in the surrounding sediment matrix. Here we compare the community structures of subseafloor microbes in co...

During fossilization, the remains of extinct organisms are subjected to taphonomic and diagenetic processes. As a result, fossils show a variety of preservational artefacts, which can range from small breaks and cracks, disarticulation and fragmentation, to the loss and deformation of skeletal structures and other hard parts. Such artefacts can present a considerable problem, as the preserved m...

Melastomataceae and Memecylaceae are pantropically distributed sister groups for which an ndhF gene phylogeny for 91 species in 59 genera is here linked with Eurasian and North American fossils in a molecular clock approach to biogeographical reconstruction. Nine species from the eight next-closest families are used to root phylogenetic trees obtained under maximum likelihood criteria. Melastom...

Melastomataceae and Memecylaceae are pantropically distributed sister groups for which an ndhF gene phylogeny for 91 species in 59 genera is here linked with Eurasian and North American fossils in a molecular clock approach to biogeographical reconstruction. Nine species from the eight next-closest families are used to root phylogenetic trees obtained under maximum likelihood criteria. Melastom...

Estimates of species divergence times using DNA sequence data are playing an increasingly important role in studies of evolution, ecology and biogeography. Most work has centred on obtaining appropriate kinds of data and developing optimal estimation procedures, whereas somewhat less attention has focused on the calibration of divergences using fossils. Case studies with multiple fossil calibra...

Fossils have been carefully documented since the time of the Classical Greek philosophers, in particular by Aristotle and his disciples in the 4th century BC. Fossils consist of highly heterogeneous materials. Such heterogeneity results from their original complexity and the short-to-longterm changes they experienced from their death, their deposition, their entire postdeposition history to the...

New data on bat fossils from Middle and Upper Pleistocene localities of France * Nouvelles donnees sur les chauves-souris fossiles de localites du Pleistocene moyen et superieur de France Paloma Sevilla a , * , Jean Chaline b a DepartamenlO de PaleonlOlogta, Facultad de Ciencias Geologicas (UCM) e lnstituto de Geologta Economica (CSIC), C/Jose Antonio Novais 2, 28040 Madrid, Spain b UMR 5561 du...

Although morphological data have historically favored a basal position for the Indian gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) within Crocodylia and a Mesozoic divergence between Gavialis and all other crocodylians, several recent molecular data sets have argued for a sister-group relationship between Gavialis and the Indonesian false gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii) and a divergence between them no earlier...

Fossil leaves which show excellent preservation of lipids and other organic compounds are preserved in abundance at the Miocene Clarkia lake deposit in northwestern Idaho, USA. Eighty three fossils from nine genera which are commonly found at the site, namely Quercus, Platanus, Magnolia, Pseudofagus, Fagus, Cocculus, Taxodium, Metasequoia and Sequoia were investigated to assess whether their ch...