0000000000384460

AUTHOR

Peter R. Menke

Paleoecology: An Adequate Window on the Past?

Starting from Ernst Haeckel’s famous definition of ecology, our review considers the premises and the meaning of paleoecological research. Unlike current ecology, paleoecology has to pay more attention when dealing with ‘‘facts’’: the concept of uniformitarianism is presented and demonstrates the importance of philosophical constructs for scientific work. The middle‐range theory attempts to filter out false conclusions. Abiotic factors have had a strong influence on adaptive evolution; volcanism, tectonism, and climate are exemplified. Subsequently we discuss the biotic viewpoint with regard to aspects of fossil findings and in this context taphonomy, stratigraphic research, and interaction…

research product

The hyo-laryngeal complex of Tarsius bancanus (Mammalia, Primates): a developmental and phylogenetic aspect

The present approach reconstructed the hyo-laryngeal complex of fetal Tarsius bancanus by using the AMIRA 3.1.1 software. Our work fills a gap of ontogenetic research as this region has only been superficially described for an adult specimen representing the same genus. Furthermore, based on 51 characters we conducted several cladistic analyses considering the "Prosimii"/Haplorrhini-debate. Some anatomical information has been taken from the literature. Macclade© 4.06 was used in order to measure TL-, CI-, and RC-values of these two competing hypotheses, however, resulting in equal support. A PAUP© 4.02b parsimony analysis based on the Haplorrhini-hypothesis showed a significant bootstrap-v…

research product