The Bilbao conference "Palaeontology and Evolution: Extinction Events": A big step forward in understanding exceptional global changes

Abstract

An important precondition to master the problems of mankind's future is to understand evolution in respect to evolutionary mechanisms, including the manifold interactions between abiotic parameters and the biota, which means the complex interplay between biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and geosphere. The contribution of the palaeontological science to approach this aim is to investigate and to analyze those cases in earth history in which such abiotic influences on the biota have to be supposed. That is the case with one certain kind of the so-called global biological events, namely the extinction events