Michael J. Benton

TL;DR: This work provides "hard" minimum and "soft" maximum age constraints for 30 divergences among key genome model organisms; these should contribute to better understanding of the dating of the animal tree of life.

TL;DR: This chapter discusses the main groups of the phylum Protozoa, which consists of Invertebrates, Amphibian-grade Tetrapoda, and Plants, and their relationships to each other.

TL;DR: In the early Triassic period, Ammonoids and some other groups diversified rapidly, within 1-3 Myr, but extinctions continued through the Early Triassic, and a stable, complex ecosystem did not re-emerge until the beginning of the Middle Triassic 8-9 Myr after the crisis as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: Analysis of the fossil record of microbes, algae, fungi, protists, plants, and animals shows that the diversity of both marine and continental life increased exponentially since the end of the Precambrian, but no support was found for the periodicity of mass extinctions.

TL;DR: A specimen-based protocol for selecting and documenting relevant fossils is presented and future directions for evaluating and utilizing phylogenetic and temporal data from the fossil record are discussed, to establish the best practices for justifying fossils used for the temporal calibration of molecular phylogenies.