Specialization, Speciation, and Radiation

Specialization, Speciation, and Radiation PDF Author: Kelley Jean Tilmon
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520251326
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
"This volume captures the state-of-the-art in the study of insect-plant interactions, and marks the transformation of the field into evolutionary biology. The contributors present integrative reviews of uniformly high quality that will inform and inspire generations of academic and applied biologists. Their presentation together provides an invaluable synthesis of perspectives that is rare in any discipline."--Brian D. Farrell, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University "Tilmon has assembled a truly wonderful and rich volume, with contributions from the lion's share of fine minds in evolution and ecology of herbivorous insects. The topics comprise a fascinating and deep coverage of what has been discovered in the prolific recent decades of research with insects on plants. Fascinating chapters provide deep analyses of some of the most interesting research on these interactions. From insect plant chemistry, behavior, and host shifting to phylogenetics, co-evolution, life-history evolution, and invasive plant-insect interaction, one is hard pressed to name a substantial topic not included. This volume will launch a hundred graduate seminars and find itself on the shelf of everyone who is anyone working in this rich landscape of disciplines."--Donald R. Strong, Professor of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis "Seldom have so many excellent authors been brought together to write so many good chapters on so many important topics in organismic evolutionary biology. Tom Wood, always unassuming and inspired by living nature, would have been amazed and pleased by this tribute."--Mary Jane West-Eberhard, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Specialization, Speciation, and Radiation

Specialization, Speciation, and Radiation PDF Author: Kelley Jean Tilmon
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520251326
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Get Book Here

Book Description
"This volume captures the state-of-the-art in the study of insect-plant interactions, and marks the transformation of the field into evolutionary biology. The contributors present integrative reviews of uniformly high quality that will inform and inspire generations of academic and applied biologists. Their presentation together provides an invaluable synthesis of perspectives that is rare in any discipline."--Brian D. Farrell, Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University "Tilmon has assembled a truly wonderful and rich volume, with contributions from the lion's share of fine minds in evolution and ecology of herbivorous insects. The topics comprise a fascinating and deep coverage of what has been discovered in the prolific recent decades of research with insects on plants. Fascinating chapters provide deep analyses of some of the most interesting research on these interactions. From insect plant chemistry, behavior, and host shifting to phylogenetics, co-evolution, life-history evolution, and invasive plant-insect interaction, one is hard pressed to name a substantial topic not included. This volume will launch a hundred graduate seminars and find itself on the shelf of everyone who is anyone working in this rich landscape of disciplines."--Donald R. Strong, Professor of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis "Seldom have so many excellent authors been brought together to write so many good chapters on so many important topics in organismic evolutionary biology. Tom Wood, always unassuming and inspired by living nature, would have been amazed and pleased by this tribute."--Mary Jane West-Eberhard, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Adaptive Speciation

Adaptive Speciation PDF Author: Ulf Dieckmann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107404182
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
Adaptive speciation occurs when biological interactions induce disruptive selection and the evolution of assortative mating, thus triggering the splitting of lineages. Internationally recognized authorities explain exciting developments in modeling speciation, including celebrated examples of rapid speciation by natural selection. The text is geared toward students and researchers in biology, physics, and mathematics.

Speciation and Patterns of Diversity

Speciation and Patterns of Diversity PDF Author: Roger Butlin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521709637
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
The diversity of species of plants and animals is the net result of the origin of new species by the splitting of existing lineages (speciation) and the loss of species through extinction. Why there are more species in some groups of organisms, in some places or at some times depends on the balance of these processes. This book explores the interaction between mechanisms and rates of speciation and these patterns of biological diversity, and is unusual in that it brings together the viewpoints of ecologists interested in the processes that generate patterns of diversity and evolutionary biologists who focus on mechanisms of speciation. It is intended to stimulate dialogue between these groups and so promote a more complete understanding of biological diversity.

Speciation and Patterns of Diversity

Speciation and Patterns of Diversity PDF Author: Roger Butlin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139474588
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 565

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Book Description
Bringing together the viewpoints of leading ecologists concerned with the processes that generate patterns of diversity, and evolutionary biologists who focus on mechanisms of speciation, this book opens up discussion in order to broaden understanding of how speciation affects patterns of biological diversity, especially the uneven distribution of diversity across time, space and taxa studied by macroecologists. The contributors discuss questions such as: Are species equivalent units, providing meaningful measures of diversity? To what extent do mechanisms of speciation affect the functional nature and distribution of species diversity? How can speciation rates be measured using molecular phylogenies or data from the fossil record? What are the factors that explain variation in rates? Written for graduate students and academic researchers, the book promotes a more complete understanding of the interaction between mechanisms and rates of speciation and these patterns in biological diversity.

How and Why Species Multiply

How and Why Species Multiply PDF Author: Peter R. Grant
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400837944
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Charles Darwin's experiences in the Galápagos Islands in 1835 helped to guide his thoughts toward a revolutionary theory: that species were not fixed but diversified from their ancestors over many generations, and that the driving mechanism of evolutionary change was natural selection. In this concise, accessible book, Peter and Rosemary Grant explain what we have learned about the origin and evolution of new species through the study of the finches made famous by that great scientist: Darwin's finches. Drawing upon their unique observations of finch evolution over a thirty-four-year period, the Grants trace the evolutionary history of fourteen different species from a shared ancestor three million years ago. They show how repeated cycles of speciation involved adaptive change through natural selection on beak size and shape, and divergence in songs. They explain other factors that drive finch evolution, including geographical isolation, which has kept the Galápagos relatively free of competitors and predators; climate change and an increase in the number of islands over the last three million years, which enhanced opportunities for speciation; and flexibility in the early learning of feeding skills, which helped species to exploit new food resources. Throughout, the Grants show how the laboratory tools of developmental biology and molecular genetics can be combined with observations and experiments on birds in the field to gain deeper insights into why the world is so biologically rich and diverse. Written by two preeminent evolutionary biologists, How and Why Species Multiply helps to answer fundamental questions about evolution--in the Galápagos and throughout the world.

Phylogeography of California

Phylogeography of California PDF Author: Kristina A. Schierenbeck
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520278879
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Phylogeography of California examines the evolution of a variety of taxaÑancient and recent, native and migratoryÑto elucidate evolutionary events both major and minor that shaped the distribution, radiation, and speciation of the biota of California. The book also interprets evolutionary history in a geological context and reviews new and emerging phylogeographic patterns. Focusing on a region that is defined by physical and political boundaries, Kristina A. Schierenbeck provides a phylogeographic survey of CaliforniaÕs diverse flora and fauna according to their major organismal groups. Life history and ecological characteristics, which play prominent roles in the various outcomes for respective clades, are also considered throughout the work. Supporting scholars and researchers who study evolutionary diversification, the book analyzes research that helps assess one of the major challenges in phylogeographic studies: understanding changes in population structures shaped by geological and geographical processes. California is one of only twenty-five acknowledged biological hotspots worldwide, and the phylogeographic history of the state can be extrapolated to study other regions in western North America. Further consideration is given to implications for conservation, recommendations concerning the biogeographic provinces that roughly define the state of California, and predictions related to climate change.

Molecular Evolution and Adaptive Radiation

Molecular Evolution and Adaptive Radiation PDF Author: Thomas J. Givnish
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521779296
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 652

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Book Description
This volume surveys advances in the study of adaptive radiation showing how molecular characters can be used to analyze the origin and pattern of diversification within a lineage in a non-circular fashion.

Developmental Plasticity and Evolution

Developmental Plasticity and Evolution PDF Author: Mary Jane West-Eberhard
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198028563
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 815

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Book Description
The first comprehensive synthesis on development and evolution: it applies to all aspects of development, at all levels of organization and in all organisms, taking advantage of modern findings on behavior, genetics, endocrinology, molecular biology, evolutionary theory and phylogenetics to show the connections between developmental mechanisms and evolutionary change. This book solves key problems that have impeded a definitive synthesis in the past. It uses new concepts and specific examples to show how to relate environmentally sensitive development to the genetic theory of adaptive evolution and to explain major patterns of change. In this book development includes not only embryology and the ontogeny of morphology, sometimes portrayed inadequately as governed by "regulatory genes," but also behavioral development and physiological adaptation, where plasticity is mediated by genetically complex mechanisms like hormones and learning. The book shows how the universal qualities of phenotypes--modular organization and plasticity--facilitate both integration and change. Here you will learn why it is wrong to describe organisms as genetically programmed; why environmental induction is likely to be more important in evolution than random mutation; and why it is crucial to consider both selection and developmental mechanism in explanations of adaptive evolution. This book satisfies the need for a truly general book on development, plasticity and evolution that applies to living organisms in all of their life stages and environments. Using an immense compendium of examples on many kinds of organisms, from viruses and bacteria to higher plants and animals, it shows how the phenotype is reorganized during evolution to produce novelties, and how alternative phenotypes occupy a pivotal role as a phase of evolution that fosters diversification and speeds change. The arguments of this book call for a new view of the major themes of evolutionary biology, as shown in chapters on gradualism, homology, environmental induction, speciation, radiation, macroevolution, punctuation, and the maintenance of sex. No other treatment of development and evolution since Darwin's offers such a comprehensive and critical discussion of the relevant issues. Developmental Plasticity and Evolution is designed for biologists interested in the development and evolution of behavior, life-history patterns, ecology, physiology, morphology and speciation. It will also appeal to evolutionary paleontologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and teachers of general biology.

Genetics of Speciation

Genetics of Speciation PDF Author: David L. Jameson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Evolution
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
The nature of populations, races, subspecies, and species. Genetic basis of isolation. Origin of isolation - theoretical. Origin of isolation - experimental. The nature of the speciation process.

Relentless Evolution

Relentless Evolution PDF Author: John N. Thompson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022601875X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
At a glance, most species seem adapted to the environment in which they live. Yet species relentlessly evolve, and populations within species evolve in different ways. Evolution, as it turns out, is much more dynamic than biologists realized just a few decades ago. In Relentless Evolution, John N. Thompson explores why adaptive evolution never ceases and why natural selection acts on species in so many different ways. Thompson presents a view of life in which ongoing evolution is essential and inevitable. Each chapter focuses on one of the major problems in adaptive evolution: How fast is evolution? How strong is natural selection? How do species co-opt the genomes of other species as they adapt? Why does adaptive evolution sometimes lead to more, rather than less, genetic variation within populations? How does the process of adaptation drive the evolution of new species? How does coevolution among species continually reshape the web of life? And, more generally, how are our views of adaptive evolution changing? Relentless Evolution draws on studies of all the major forms of life—from microbes that evolve in microcosms within a few weeks to plants and animals that sometimes evolve in detectable ways within a few decades. It shows evolution not as a slow and stately process, but rather as a continual and sometimes frenetic process that favors yet more evolutionary change.