European animals: their Geological History and Geograthical Distribution

A geological history of reflecting optics.

Optical reflectors in animals are diverse and ancient. The first image-forming eye appeared around 543 million years ago. This introduced vision as a selection pressure in the evolution of animals, and consequently the evolution of adapted optical devices. The earliest known optical reflectors--diffraction gratings--are 515 Myr old. The subsequent fossil record preserves multilayer reflectors, ...

Methods for history matching under geological constraints

Two geostatistical methods for history matching are presented. Both rely on the sequential simulation principle for generating geologically sound realizations. The first method relies on perturbing the sequential simulation through the perturbation of the conditional distribution models; the second method relies on the perturbation of random numbers. We show that both approaches are general in ...

A geological history of the Turkana Basin.

The Turkana Basin preserves a long and detailed record of biotic evolution, cultural development, and rift valley geology in its sedimentary strata. Before the formation of the modern basin, Cretaceous fluvial systems, Paleogene lakes, and Oligo-Miocene volcano-sedimentary sequences left fossil-bearing strata in the region. These deposits were in part related to an early system of rift basins t...

Distribution of Animals and Plants

Carotenoids and life-history evolution in animals.

Animals must allocate finite resources amongst competing demands. A suite of such trade-offs is thought to occur in the deployment of carotenoids, being widely responsible for sexual coloration and also important in antioxidant and immune defences. Experimental manipulation of dietary carotenoid availability is a useful approach for elucidating the mechanistic bases of carotenoid allocation tra...