The Macroevolutionary History of Bony Fishes: A Paleontological View

Bony fishes are the principal group of backboned animals in contemporary aquatic settings. Extant species are the focus of a vigorous program of macroevolutionary research, but paleontology offers important perspectives. Multiple fossil records bear on the evolution of bony fishes, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Understanding of the interrelationships among living bony fishes has improved substantially in recent years, but confidence in the phylogenetic placement of fossils is highly variable. This reflects limitations in current understanding of both fossil anatomy and hard-tissue characters for extant clades. Patterns of taxonomic and morphological diversity over bony fish history remain incompletely known, with most studies restricted to particular clades or specific intervals of time. The wealth of anatomical data recorded by the fossil record could make an important addition to a growing body of work examining phenotypic evolution across living species, but incorporating this information requires the placement of fossils within phylogenetic trees.