RUSSIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ADVANCE OF PALEOBIOLOGY

The Russian contribution to paleobiology is often associated with key fossil deposits, from the exceptional preservation of the Toula coal of Malovka and Tovarkovo, to frozen Siberian mammoths, to Ediacarans of the White Sea. But the most important Russian contributions are seen in the development of early and sometimes neglected theoretical views. Following the lead of C.-J. Koene, A. I. Oparin presented a theory for the origin of life that required reducing conditions in the early Earth’s atmosphere. Extending the work of A. de Bary, the great Russian symbiogeneticists K. S. Merezhkovsky, B. M. Kozo-Polyansky, and A. S. Famintsyn gave symbiosis a pivotal role as mechanism of evolutionary change. Emphasizing the expansiveness of the biota by comparing it to the physics of an ideal gas, V. I. Vernadsky quantified his concepts of the "velocity of life" and the "pressure of life." There is a liveliness (if not quite vitalism) in mainstream Russian paleobiology, with its emphasis on mutual aid, arogenesis and, as put by A. Vucinich, an implicit philosophical outlook that asserts "the uniqueness of living matter." This theme appears among the writings of modern Russian paleontologists, from the analysis of parallel evolution in archeocyaths to a fascination with a French formulation of the "paradox of transformism." Current theoretical perspectives in the West that link biotic and biospheric evolution draw inspiration from the expansive liveliness of Russian paleobiology.