A Natural History of Shells
By G. Vermeij. 2021
359 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Geerat Vermeij wrote this "celebration of shells" to share his enthusiasm for these supremely elegant creations and what they can teach us about nature. Most other popular books on shells emphasize the identification of species, but Vermeij uses shells as a way to explore major ideas in biology. How are shells built? How do they work? How did they evolve? With these questions in mind, the author lucidly - and charmingly - demonstrates how shells give us insights into the lives of animals in our own day as well as in the distant geological past. As snails, clams, and other molluscs enlarge their shells, they inscribe a detailed record of the everyday events and unusual circumstances that mark their lives. Moreover, the fossil record that chronicles the history of life is replete with shells of extinct species. Vermeij draws on comparisons of shells from different parts of the world and from successive geological periods to argue that predators have played a decisive role in the evolution of shells. Architectural specialization, he argues, is dictated by the risks, rewards, costs, and benefits imposed by predators and competitors on shell-builders living in a dangerous world. This book will be of interest both to amateur shell collectors and to scholars, and its lively review of evolutionary history should prove especially appealing to a general audience.
Subfields: Biomedical Engineering
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c49b6912c92ae0297314dace4f02b18c1eb3d47a
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In Biomedical Engineering
Citations in the corpus
- Why are there so few evolutionary transitions between aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems (2000, background): “Strong circumstantial evidence shows that freshwater molluscs and crustaceans with mineralized external skeletons lack many of the morphological and behavioral specializations to predation when compared to their marine counterparts (Vermeij & Covich, 1978; Vermeij & Dudley, 1985; Vermeij, 1993 ).”
- Functional diversity among predators of a freshwater snail imposes an adaptive trade-off for shell morphology (2000, background): “Predation has been a major force in the evolutionary diversification of gastropod shells (reviewed by Vermeij, 1987, 1993 ).”
- Early Larval Development of the Sydney Rock Oyster Saccostrea glomerata Under Near-Future Predictions of CO2-Driven Ocean Acidification (2009, background): “ACC is more soluble than aragonite (Brečević & Nielsen 1989), which in turn is more soluble than calcite (Vermeij 1993).”
- TRAIT COMPENSATION IN MARINE GASTROPODS: SHELL SHAPE, AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOR, AND SUSCEPTIBILITY TO PREDATION (2004, background): “Durophagous crabs have evolved exceptionally strong claws and their long evolutionary history with marine gastropods has led to co-evolved defensive shell structures such as increased thickness, sculpturing, and reduced apical spire (Vermeij 1993).”
- Antarctic Marine Biodiversity: Adaptations, Environments and Responses to Change (2018, background): “This has been proposed by several authors to be the possible reason why skeletons are smaller at high latitude because it increases the energy needed to complete shell production (Graus 1974, Vermeij 1978, Clarke 1983, Clarke 1990, Clarke 1993c, Vermeij 1993).”
- The muricid gastropod subfamily Rapaninae: phylogeny and ecological history (2000, positive): “A narrow aperture hinders access by predators to the retracted edible soft parts (Vermeij 1974, 1993).”
- Hermit crab biocoenoses: a worldwide review of the diversity and natural history of hermit crab associates (2004, background): “While these are incidental associates, certain sipunculans occupy empty gastropod shells and thus may compete with hermit crabs for shells in some regions (Morris et al., 1991; Vermeij, 1993).”
- Rapid dissolution of shells of weakly calcified Antarctic benthic macroorganisms indicates high vulnerability to ocean acidification (2009, result): “This observation supports the conclusion of Harper (2000) who indicated that the common premise that calcitic shells evolved to retard shell dissolution (e.g. Taylor & Reid 1990, Vermeij 1993) should be treated with caution.”
- Predator-induced plasticity and morphological trade-offs in latitudinally separated populations of Littorina obtusata (2000, background): “Recent work (Trussell, 2000; Trussell and Smith, 2000) suggests that geographic differences in water temperature, by altering rates of calcium carbonate deposition and dissolution (Vermeij, 1978, 1993), may contribute to this pattern.”
- Urban marine ecology in southern California: the ability of riprap structures to serve as rocky intertidal habitat (2009, background): “Most of the mobile species not found on riprap are high-spired gastropods, which are known to be more susceptible to wave forces (Vermeij 1993).”