A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters

by Andrew H. Knoll

Earth isn’t a passive platform on which dynamic populations evolve; our planet is just as dynamic as the populations it supports, with environments continually changing on scales that range from local and transient to long-term global transformation. And when environmental disruption subjects the biota to a short, sharp shock, species and even ecological structure can collapse. Population genetics certainly underpins the origin of species, but the persistence of species is commonly adjudicated by Earth’s environmental dynamism.