“Core to evolution are the species concept and the origin of species, with ramifications in biology, paleobiology, and philosophy. These thoughtful essays place the questions in a rich historical context and integrate modern statistical and computational approaches with molecular data to reach a consensus position, with important recommendations in several chapters of key research questions and model assumptions.”

Michael J. Benton, University of Bristol, author of “When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time”

“Species are THE fundamental unit for evolutionary studies, but many aspects of their recognition and definition get tossed around without really being examined. Allmon and Yacobucci are trying to change that, having encouraged their chapter authors to be explicit about their own approach to defining and recognizing species, and to discuss how their approach ‘trickles down’ into their research. A significant project that will be valuable to working paleontologists and biologists, Species and Speciation in the Fossil Record will serve its purpose nicely.”

Dana Geary, University of Wisconsin–Madison

“Darwin’s famous title, On the Origin of Species, implies that the very issue of biological evolution centers on species. But what are species? Darwin began his evolutionary explorations agreeing with early naturalists, like Giammbattista Brocchi, who thought species, just like their component individual organisms, are discrete entities, with naturally caused births, histories, and eventual deaths, strung together into ancestor-descendant lineages. But, after discovering natural selection in the late 1830s, Darwin switched his concept of species, adopting instead the other great evolutionary pioneer Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s vision of species as arbitrarily defined segments of a smoothly evolving evolutionary continuum. These dual concepts of species as seen in the fossil record have survived in variant forms down to the present day. Allmon and Yacobucci’s book traces all the nuances of discord that have continued to plague the meaning of the term species, bringing the best minds together to produce a succinct overview of the nature of species and the role species play in the evolutionary process, especially as seen in the fossil record. Thanks to this book, much of the disparities historically seen between paleontological and neontological species melt away—and the strong role that speciation plays in the history of life comes to the fore in a unified and coherent manner.”

Niles Eldredge, curator emeritus of paleontology, American Museum of Natural History