Biological Evolutionary Lineages in Terrestrial Habitats in the Phanerozoic

Abiotic framework conditions of terrestrial evolution are quite different from aquatic habitats. Low density of air reduces the impacts of air currents and dampens to much lower extents the impacts of gravity, solar radiation and temperature dynamics than water. Dynamics of temperature and precipitations are essential constraints for the dispersal of photoautotrophic organisms on land. Erosion of land surfaces is challenging for the reconstruction of terrestrial evolution over the Earth history—in particular for microbial life forms. For multicellular terrestrial evolution are land plants in interactions with fungi and microorganisms pivotal. Land plants provided not only organic material for heterotrophic organisms but modified also—within their eco-physiological potentials—hydrogeological processes and climatic conditions. Dispersal of land plants stimulated the emigrations of some animals groups from sea to land. Invertebrates migrated at first over different routes into terrestrial habitats. Evolutionary adaptations of mouthparts and gut microbiomes—in particular of arthropods—to overcome resistant living tissues of land plants extended the energetic basis for herbivores. Vertebrates followed as fishes into freshwater habitats and—after modifications of hydro-geodynamics by deep rooting plants—eventually as tetrapods into terrestrial habitats. Asynchronous terrestrialisation of plants and animals induced global long-term adaptive damped oscillating processes with at least three phases indicating heterarchic interdependencies in evolutionary processes. The first phase can be characterised by expansions of land plants without constraints of large herbivores, the second by diversification of large vertebrate herbivores and the third by increasing interdependencies between plants (angiosperms) and animals (insects). Framework conditions of the third phase were essential for evolution of the genus Homo—now the biggest biological risk factor for global mass extinctions.