ABSTRACT
Terrestrial ecosystems have been populated by a succession of spectacular ular and diverse animals and plants throughout most of the Phanerozoic. Terrestrial biotas have expanded, filled and exploited ecological space following the appearance of adaptive innovations and new guilds of animals and plants; this process is illustrated during the various colonizations of the land and conquests of the air. This allochthonous land-derived biota with predatory arthropods, however, indicates that complex and sophisticated terrestrial ecosystems were well established by the late Silurian; initial land-based ecosystems were clearly post-dated by their current fossil record. These assemblages, however, have been studied in considerable detail by a wide range of experts to provide a series of data spikes illustrating the evolution and expansion of terrestrial ecosystems. Terrestrial predation by vertebrates has been described in terms of a succession of changing relationships of megadynasties.
