Geosciences Working Group

lecturer: Dr. Ulrich Kotthoff
The evolutionary history of mammals and their sister groups on the one hand and birds and the closely related dinosaurs on the other is extremely exciting and characterized by power shifts. Both groups of animals went separate ways in terms of evolution since the late Carboniferous and competed for ecological niches. The talk will explain how, over the past roughly 300 million years, sometimes one group, sometimes the other, has been at the top of food chains in marine and terrestrial ecosystems, and how they have influenced each other in the process. However, conciliatory examples of cooperation between birds and mammals and the threat to today`s forms by humans will also be addressed.

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