Seabirds Fossils
Most seabirds systems (eg., species comunities, populations) are large in both tenporal and spatial scale. For example, it is now firmly established that many seabirds polations and comunities are affected by climatic cycles, some of which operate globally and ocer periords extending from several years to decades. In general, seabirds are long lived with each bird experiencing a variety of climatic condiions during its lifetime. The longevity of individual seabirds and the fact that these birds live in environments that are affected by large-scale phenomena have prompted a plethora of long-term studies of seabirds populations and comunities. In fact, there is a lenghty history of long-term studies of seabirds populations and communities.
The long-term history of seabird systems is even more remarkable when we considere the fossil record. Contrary to "common knowledge", birds have a rather extensive fossil record (Olson 1985a) that is most informative. Owing to the fact that seabirds generally live or lived in depositional environments (eg., nearshore marine) rather than erosional environments (eg.,upland), the fossil record of seabirds represent a large percentage of the total fossil record of all birds (see Olson 1985a). Given this relatively good but cleary incomplete fossil record, it is possible to use seabird fossils as a tool not only to study the ruly long-term history of seabird, but also to help interprep the biogeographical patterns and community structure of modern-day seabird systems.
Extract to: Warheit, K. 2002. In Biology of Marine Birds. CRC Press.
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