中国科学院南京地质古生物研究所机构知识库

Molecular paleobiology is a subfield of paleontology that uses molecular biological methods on extant organisms to address geoscientifically relevant questions. Progress in the field was last reviewed in 2007, and here we highlight some of the more recent developments, with a focus on ancient animal evolution, in areas such as the application of molecular clocks to estimate clade ages, the evolution of biomineralization, and the evolution of key traits. We argue that molecular paleobiology has much to offer and will be central to paleontological research and evolutionary biology in general, but we also discuss some remaining challenges and future directions of the discipline. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. and Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, CAS. All rights reserved.