The exposed nature of the northern Faroe Islands high relief landscape enabled widespread Holocene slope process activity and deposition of related landforms, which seem largely controlled by extreme meteorological conditions. Three different slope landforms – the large colluvial Glyvurs fan, the lower Marknastiggjur mountainside debris-flow deposits in the town of Klaksvik, and the mountain top aeolian sediment cover on Eidiskollur – were investigated by a combination of geomorphological, stratigraphic, sedimentological, chronological and modern process studies.

Sporadic Holocene snow-avalanche and debris-flow activity were documented, with sedimentation starting significantly before 8000 cal yr BP in the Glyvurs fan, which still sporadically experiences activity. The largest amounts of Holocene slope sedimentation seem to occur in colluvial fans, such as the Glyvurs fan, which are located below large dyke canyons, called gjogvs. The lower Marknastiggjur mountainside consists of mainly debris-flow deposits, which started before 7800 cal yr BP. A relatively small amount of precipitation, but with high precipitation intensity after a dry summer, triggered modern small-scale debris-flows in the northern islands, also at the Marknastiggjur mountainside, early in Autumn 2000. Extensive continuous mountaintop aeolian sedimentation from cliff weathering started around 6900 cal yr BP on the Eidiskollur peninsula.

No direct influence of settlement on slope process activity was found at the different investigated slope landforms in the northern Faroe Islands.

The Punta Peligro fauna includes some of the oldest Cenozoic South American mammals, and the oldest ones for Patagonia. In addition to frogs, turtles, and crocodiles, an unusual mammalian assemblage is formed by a mixture of Mesozoic lineages of Gondwanan origin and therians (eutherians and metatherians) derived from Laurasian immigrants. This paper describes new remains of the Didolodontidae ‘condylarth’ genus Escribania Bonaparte, Van Valen & Kramarz, 1993. The new material includes an isolated right lower third molar with talonid morphology different from the homologous structure of the type species Escribania chubutensis Bonaparte, Van Valen & Kramarz, 1993, justifying the recognition of a new species. The derived nature of the didolodontid ‘condylarths’ from the Banco Negro Inferior, their differences with the Mioclaenidae Kollpaniinae from the early Paleocene of Tiupampa, and the record of bona fide litoptherns in the Banco Negro Inferior (BNI) suggest an early radiation of the panameriungulates.

The interpretation of pedicle soft tissue preservation in a unique brachiopod specimen of Wenlock (Silurian) age from Herefordshire, western England, is re-assessed. Bethia serraticulma, assigned originally to the Orthida, is more probably a member of the Strophomenida (Plectambonitoidea). The supposed pedicle structure is more plausibly a weakly mineralised pedicle sheath, which is a common morphological and functional development in the early ontogeny of a number of Palaeozoic brachiopod lineages.

As an isolated island group lying off the NW European mainland which was uninhabited until the mid-first millennium AD, the Faroes offer a unique opportunity to study natural processes of Holocene ecosystem development in a region where anthropogenic activity is usually a complicating factor. In this paper new radiocarbon dates and pollen-analytical data from the island of Sandoy, in the centre of the Faroes archipelago, are presented. Together with existing pollen and plant macrofossil records, these data allow a reconstruction of patterns of Holocene vegetational and edaphic change. Basal peat dates indicate that large areas of blanket mire were established long before the first human settlement, demonstrating conclusively that human impact is not necessary for the development of such ecosystems. The timing of the initiation of the blanket peats varies markedly, both across the Faroes as a whole and at a landscape scale, with dates distributed evenly over 9000 years. This suggests that, in the Faroes at least, pedogenesis was more important than climatic change in determining the timing of the spread of blanket peat systems.

With their extensive fossil record and shells of stable low-Mg calcite, rhynchonelliform brachiopods are attractive sources of climate information via seawater temperature proxies such as stable oxygen isotope composition. In Terebratalia transversa (Sowerby) there is a progression towards oxygen isotope equilibrium in the calcite of the innermost secondary layer. This study confirms the lack of any vital effects influencing oxygen isotope composition of T. transversa, even in specialised areas of the innermost secondary layer. Calcite Mg/Ca ratio is another potential seawater temperature proxy, that has the advantage of not being influenced by salinity. Mg concentrations measured by electron microprobe analyses indicate that there is no concomitant decrease in Mg concentration towards the inner secondary layer, associated with the progressive shift towards oxygen isotope equilibrium. Mg distribution is heterogeneous throughout the shell and correlates with that of sulphur, which may be a proxy for organic components, suggesting that some of the Mg may not be in the calcite lattice. It is essential therefore, to determine the chemical environment of the magnesium ions to avoid any erroneous temperature extrapolations in brachiopods or any other calcite biomineral.

A total of 47 genera, in 80 species, of Mississippian, or Lower Carboniferous, crinoids are evaluated from 61 localities in Scotland based on a modern update of the literature, study of museum collections, and new field work. Among the 80 species, 76 are considered valid, with eight requiring new combinations of genus and species names. In addition, one species is considered a nomen dubium, and three can only be assigned at the generic level. Asbian faunas have a moderate generic richness of 13. Brigantian faunas have the highest generic richness at 40. Arnsbergian faunas have the lowest generic richness at three. There are no Mississippian crinoid faunas in Scotland older than Asbian. The dominant Brigantian crinoid faunas occur in limestones and shales in the shallow shelf marine intervals of Yoredale-style cyclothems. The Asbian faunas occur in shallower, nearshore mudstones and limestones of Yoredale-style cyclothems. The late Viséan (Brigantian) fauna is more similar in overall taxonomic composition to the global record for the Serpukhovian rather than the Viséan. This reflects the establishment of the Late Palaeozoic Crinoid Macroevolutionary Fauna, dominated by advanced cladid crinoids, by the end of the Viséan in Scotland.

Archaeological investigations demonstrate that peoples first settled the Caribbean islands approximately 6000–7000 years ago. At least four major, and multiple minor, migrations took place over the next millennia by peoples from Mesoamerica and South America who practised various subsistence strategies and had different levels of technology. For decades, researchers have been interested in investigating how these groups adapted to and impacted insular environments through time. This paper combines archaeological, palaeoecological, historical, and modern biological data to examine the effects of humans on Caribbean island ecosystems using a historical ecology approach. By synthesising a wide range of data sources, we take a human/nature dialectical perspective to understanding how peoples adapted to and modified their environments. The data suggest that earlier foraging/fishing Archaic groups (ca. 6000–3000 BP), who used a stone tool and shell technology and transported few, if any non-indigenous plants or animals, still impacted island landscapes as evidenced by bird and sloth extinctions. As more advanced ceramic making horticulturalists entered the Antillean chain around 2500 BP, there is an observable change to island environments as a result of forest clearance, overexploitation of both terrestrial and marine resources, and growing populations. Palaeoecological and palaeoenvironmental records also suggest, however, that an increased moisture regime during the late Holocene probably led to a decrease in near-shore salinity and heavier sediment and nutrient loads in rivers. These conditions would have been exacerbated by land clearance for agriculture, leading to coastline progradation, increased turbidity, and mangrove development resulting in changes to the availability of resources for humans on some islands. Although prehistoric peoples in the Caribbean were certainly impacting their environments, it was not until Europeans arrived and population centres grew that intensive and widespread degradation of island landscapes and resources occurred. Modern ecological studies, along with historical and archaeological data, indicate that hundreds of species have been driven to extinction or extirpation – many others have significantly diminished in number, especially within the last two millennia.

A study of type and newly collected material of the Silurian ostracod Richteria migrans (Barrande, 1872) demonstrates that it had wide distribution, occurring in at least the Czech Republic, France, Sardinia, Wales, central Asia and probably Poland. R. migrans has biostratigraphic value, as an indicator for the mid to late part of the Ludlow Series. It was almost certainly pelagic, living predominantly in probable shelf topographic lows to marginal/off-shelf environments, characteristically with cephalopod-graptolite-bivalve-dominant associates. It had at least five to six growth stages, exhibits polymorphic variation, and its morphology provides evidence to endorse the notion that ‘entomozoaceans’ are myodocopes.

Two Ordovician plectambonitoid genera, Alwynella and Grorudia, occur in drill core sections of Latvia in the East Baltic, and in exposures and loose blocks on the Swedish Island of Öland in the Baltic Sea. The new material confirms differences between the two taxa that are assigned herein to separate families, Alwynellidae fam. nov. and Grorudiidae Cocks & Rong, 1989. In particular, the undercut cardinalia separates Alwynella from Grorudia and indicates its proximity to the sowerbyellids. The genus Grorudia, which is externally similar to Alwynella, is more closely related to the palaeostrophomenines. A new species Grorudia morrisoni sp. nov. is established in the East Baltic. The specimens from Öland are included tentatively within the genus Grorudia due to lack of interiors. Both Alwynella and Grorudia were confined to deeper-water facies in the Baltic palaeobasin, within successions ranging in age from latest Mid (late Llanvirn) to earliest Late Ordovician (mid Caradoc).

The Late Carboniferous whip spider Graeophonus anglicus Pocock, 1911 (Arachnida: Amblypygi), is redescribed on the basis of the holotype and nine other specimens all preserved in sideritic nodules from the British Middle Coal Measures of Coseley, Staffordshire, UK. This species is clearly basal with respect to most living whip spiders, expressing numerous plesiomorphic character states and can be referred to both the suborder Paleoamblypygi and the ‘living fossil’ family Paracharontidae (with one Recent species), the latter based on an explict character of dorsal spination on the pedipalp femur. This suggests that crown-group Amblypygi originated by at least the mid-Palaeozoic.

The 1800 km-long Aleutian archipelago represents a model ecosystem to track human–environmental interactions across space and through time. Defining the southern margin of Beringia across which much of the early peopling of the Americas occurred, the Aleutians present a 9000 year record of human occupation in the eastern part of the island chain, and more than 3000 years in the west. Molecular evidence demonstrates: (1) that Aleuts shared common ancestry with Chukchi and Siberian Eskimos of Chukotka; (2) the original patterns of migration into the Aleutian islands were from the Alaskan peninsula in a westward direction with no evidence for island-hopping from Kamchatka; and (3) a highly significant statistical relationship between geography and genetics, based on mtDNA sequences, was observed despite previous population disruption. Historically, the Aleutian region is a rich ecotone, with ocean fisheries, abundant populations of large marine mammals, thick kelp forests, complex near-shore ecosystems and intertidal zones, spawning streams, and a highly diverse avian fauna. Each of these environments and resources has been pivotal in shaping the adaptive strategies of human occupants of the island chain since the initial colonisation of the Aleutians from the Alaskan Peninsula. In turn, Holocene human immigration, prehistoric cultural adaptations and subsequent historic events have had reciprocal impacts on the natural systems of the Aleutians.

The records of columnar shell structures of linguloid brachiopods (Class Lingulata, Order Lingulida, Superfamily Linguloidea) are reviewed in the light of the discovery of two new taxa from the Middle Cambrian Forsemölla Limestone Bed of southern Sweden. The linguloid taxa, described here as Eoobolus? sp. aff. E. priscus (Poulsen) and Canalilatus? simplex sp. nov., are both characterised by a columnar shell structure, a structural type that is representative for acrotretoid brachiopods and that has previously only rarely been reported from the linguloids. Though the two taxa are superficially similar to known genera, i.e., Eoobolus and Canalilatus, their shell structure challenges such affiliations, as the shell structure of the type species of these genera is previously unknown. Linguloid families whose morphological characteristics agree the most with those of the new taxa, i.e., the Zhanatellidae and the Eoobolidae, and from which columnar shell structures have been reported, i.e., the Lingulellotretidae and the Kyrshabaktellidae, are reviewed briefly. Many taxa assigned to these families completely lack shell structure data and are in need of restudy in order to elucidate their systematic position. Knowledge of the representative type of shell structure of the various suprageneric taxa within the Linguloidea is considered crucial, in order to unravel their currently poorly resolved phylogenetic relationships.

We present the first record of Holocene and Pleistocene environmental change derived from the chemical and stable-isotope composition of a tropical cave guano sequence from Makangit Cave in northern Palawan (Philippines). The 180 cm sequence of guano, derived predominantly from insectivorous bats and birds, consists of two distinct units. An upper section of reddish-brown oxidised guano to 110 cm was deposited since the mid-Holocene while a lower section of black, reduced guano was deposited through the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to >30 000 BP. Carbon-isotope (δ13C) values in guano deposited during the LGM are as high as −13·5‰ indicating that a C4-dominated grassland existed in the area around the cave at this time. Guano δ13C values of − 25‰ to − 28‰ suggest that this open vegetation was replaced by C3-dominated closed tropical forest, similar to that of the present, by the mid-Holocene. The results suggest that the climate of northern Palawan was substantially drier at the LGM than is currently the case.

The loop configuration, structure and growth are studied in a series of megathiridoid dorsal valves ranging in length from 0·7 to 6 mm. The structure of the posterior and anterior sectors of the descending lamellae and their relationships with the socket ridges, dorsal septa and dorsal valve floor, are studied, illustrated and described. Detailed studies show that internal structures display great variability. In the megathiridoids the lamellae of more typical terebratulide loops are replaced by partially developed loops in early developmental stages, resulting in a mix of free sections of loop together with sections where the lophophore rests directly on the epithelium of the valve floor. Comments on the ecology of the megathiridoid species are included and relate their unusually wide gapes, which position their lophophores fully accessible to the open sea, with their strong lophophore attachments and loss of typical free loops. The new genus Joania (type species Terebratula cordata Risso, 1826) is erected for those Argyrotheca which, although having a typical megathiridoid brachidium, differ in their adult crural development, their narrow hinge line, their prominent cardinal process, their characteristic dorsal median septum and their tuberculate radial ridges terminating anteriorly in tubercles.

New cranial material of the ‘rhynchodipterid’ lungfish Soederberghia groenlandica from Upper Devonian (Famennian) strata in East Greenland is described. Previously unknown structures identified here include components of the hyoid arch (ceratohyal, hypohyal) and the lower jaw (prearticular, dentary). Earlier interpretations of the cheek and mandible of Soederberghia are reconsidered in the light of new fossil specimens. Some of the difficulties in assessing the homologies between cheek bones in Soederberghia and those of other lungfishes stem from confusion over the arrangement in Rhynchodipterus, and a revised interpretation of this genus is proposed. The single infraorbital bar found in Soederberghia probably originates, in part, from an expanded bone 10 (quadratojugal) of the kind found in Griphognathus. Hypotheses that posit ‘rhynchodipterid’ polyphyly seem unlikely in light of a set of derived cranial characters that define a coherent radiation of long-snouted, denticle-bearing lungfishes known from the Late Devonian. The hypothesis presented here places ‘rhynchodipterids’ as a paraphyletic grade with respect to fleurantiids. Rhynchodipterus, Soederberghia, and fleurantiids form a clade to the exclusion of the species of Griphognathus. G. minutidens is the sister taxon to this apical group, while G. sculpta and G. whitei are more remote from it.

Campbell Island is a small, uninhabited peat-covered island lying in the cool southern ocean 600 km south of the New Zealand mainland. Dracophyllum scrub is the main cover from sea level to 200 m, above which tussock grassland, macrophyllous forbs and tundra dominate. Seven peat profiles from sea level to the tundra zone provide an elevational transect for pollen and charcoal records spanning the last 500 years. Scrub density was relatively low between 200 and 400 cal yrs BP, possibly due to Little Ice Age cooling, but had recovered by the time Europeans discovered the island in AD 1810. Burning and grazing during a brief farming episode (AD 1895–1931) severely reduced scrub and palatable grasses and forbs. Vegetation recovery is now well advanced following cessation of farming and the later elimination of all feral grazing animals, cats and rats. Climates were cool in the southwest Pacific during the farming period, and since AD 1970 the island has warmed by c. 0·5°C. However, there has been no upwards movement of the scrubline despite vigorous regeneration of scrub at lower altitudes. The island's cloudy, highly oceanic climate appears to offset increasing summer warmth, and scrubline is likely to rise only if clearer and less windy, as well as warmer, summers eventuate.

The Lower Permian of the Haushi basin, Interior Oman (Al Khlata Formation to Saiwan Formation/lower Gharif member) records climate change from glaciation, through marine sedimentation in the Haushi sea, to subtropical desert. To investigate the palaeoclimatic evolution of the Haushi Sea we used O, C, and Sr isotopes from 31 brachiopod shells of eight species collected bed by bed within the type-section of the Saiwan Formation. We assessed diagenesis by scanning electron microscopy of ultrastructure, cathodoluminescence, and geochemistry, and rejected fifteen shells not meeting specific preservation criteria. Spiriferids and spiriferinids show better preservation of the fibrous secondary layer than do orthotetids and productids and are therefore more suitable for isotopic analysis. δ18O of −3·7 to −3·1℅ from brachiopods at the base of the Saiwan Formation are probably related to glacial meltwater. Above this, an increase in δ18O may indicate ice accumulation elsewhere in Gondwana or more probably that the Haushi sea was an evaporating embayment of the Neotethys Ocean. δ13C varies little and is within the range of published data: its trend towards heavier values is consistent with increasing aridity and oligotrophy. Saiwan Sr isotope signatures are less radiogenic than those of the Sakmarian LOWESS seawater curve, which is based on extrapolation between few data points. In the scenario of evaporation in a restricted Haushi basin, the variation in Sr isotope composition may reflect a fluvial component.

Dark limestones in the old quarries at Leny, Perthshire contain sparse beds with tiny fossils. They are poorly preserved and, though barely affected by the Ordovician Grampian Event tectonism, there is some taphonomic distortion and many are corroded along stylolitised horizons. The fauna mainly comprises trilobites of two types, open-ocean miomerids and polymerid shelf dwellers. Miomerids Condylopyge cf. eli and Kiskinella cristata indicate a stratigraphical position equivalent to the base of the paradoxidid Amgan Stage of Siberia; traditionally regarded as ‘Middle Cambrian’. However, the bulk of the Leny miomerids, notably species of Pagetides, are forms described from the outer edge of Laurentia, within the Bonnia–Olenellus Zone, where it is considered to be ‘Lower Cambrian’. The Leny polymerids were likely transported off-shelf and some are conspecific with taxa in the Laurentian allochthonous Quebec and New York successions of the Early–Middle Ordovician (Taconic) Appalachian Orogen. The Leny Limestone and Shale Member of the Keltie Water Grit Formation is part of the Dalradian Supergroup deposited in an off-shelf Caledonide Grampian Terrane of the Humber Tectonostratigraphical Zone, midway between the North American successions and the Greenland Caledonides.

Additional to the trilobites, brachiopods, sponges, hyoliths, bradoriids and a selection of indeterminable organic fragments occur; none of which has any particular age significance.

Like most metazoan biomineralisations, the brachiopod shell is the end product of a biologically controlled calcification process. The main agent of the control is the extracellular matrix, which is secreted by the outer mantle epithelium. This matrix mediates the calcification process by allowing crystal nucleation and elongation in specific orientations and finally, by stopping crystal growth. The proteinaceous moiety of brachiopod shell matrices has been extensively studied. Less known are the post-translational modifications that occur in these matrices, in particular glycosylations. In this comparison of five species of Recent articulated brachiopods, the ratio of soluble to insoluble organic matrix varies between the species. Polydisperse macromolecular materials occur in each of these species with discrete proteins of 50 kDa in Notosaria nigricans, Calloria inconspicua and Neothyris lenticularis, 37 kDa in Terebratulina retusa and Gryphus vitreus and 20–25 kDa in N. nigricans. Protein mixtures from all five species respond differently to anionic stains (Stains-All and Alcian Blue). PAS staining results in a positive smear in C. inconspicua and T. retusa and highlights low molecular weight glycoproteins in C. inconspicua. The polysaccharide composition of the soluble matrix of T. retusa is different from the others due to high proportions of arabinose and low proportions of fucose. In all cases, polysaccharide composition of the insoluble matrix is dominated by glucose and glucosamine. Insoluble matrices have more glucose and xylose and less galactosamine and glucosamine than the corresponding soluble matrix. Relatively high amounts of glucosamine may suggest the presence of chitin in the shell matrix of rhynchonelliform brachiopods.

Oceanic islands offer outstanding ‘model systems' for investigating long-term dynamics between human populations and their ecosystems. Whilst the state factors involved in human-environment dynamics on islands are often simpler than on continents, the same essential processes are involved. This paper applies a comparative approach to understanding the reciprocal interactions between a set of four Polynesian island cases (Tikopia, Mangaia, Mangareva, Hawaiian Islands), over time scales of between one and three thousand years (kyr). In all cases, the island ecosystems were colonised by Polynesian populations derived from the same ancestral culture, with similar socioeconomic patterns. However, the ecosystems vary significantly in scale, geologic age, and other characteristics. Comparing the historical trajectories of these human–environment dynamics, as revealed by archaeological and palaeoecological study, provides insights into the relative impact of humans on pristine island ecosystems, the influence of environment on ecosystem vulnerability, and the ways in which societies have modified their economies, sociopolitical structures, and other aspects of culture in response to long-term environmental changes.