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Baum and Smith, both professors evolutionary biology and researchers in the field of systematics, present this highly accessible introduction to phylogenetics and its importance in modern biology. Ever since Darwin, the evolutionary histories of organisms have been portrayed in the form of branching trees or “phylogenies.” However, the broad significance of the phylogenetic trees has come to be appreciated only quite recently. Phylogenetics has myriad applications in biology, from discovering the features present in ancestral organisms, to finding the sources of invasive species and infectious diseases, to identifying our closest living (and extinct) hominid relatives. Taking a conceptual approach, Tree Thinking introduces readers to the interpretation of phylogenetic trees, how these trees can be reconstructed, and how they can be used to answer biological questions. Examples and vivid metaphors are incorporated throughout, and each chapter concludes with a set of problems, valuable for both students and teachers. Tree Thinking is must-have textbook for any student seeking a solid foundation in this fundamental area of evolutionary biology.
Phylogenies, or evolutionary trees, are the basic structures necessary to think about and analyze differences between species. Statistical, computational, and algorithmic work in this field has been ongoing for four decades now, and there have been great advances in understanding. Yet no book has summarized this work. Inferring Phylogenies does just that in a single, compact volume. Phylogenies are inferred with various kinds of data. This book concentrates on some of the central ones: discretely coded characters, molecular sequences, gene frequencies, and quantitative traits. Also covered are restriction sites, RAPDs, and microsatellites.
The long-awaited revision of the industry standard on phylogenetics Since the publication of the first edition of this landmark volume more than twenty-five years ago, phylogenetic systematics has taken its place as the dominant paradigm of systematic biology. It has profoundly influenced the way scientists study evolution, and has seen many theoretical and technical advances as the field has continued to grow. It goes almost without saying that the next twenty-five years of phylogenetic research will prove as fascinating as the first, with many exciting developments yet to come. This new edition of Phylogenetics captures the very essence of this rapidly evolving discipline. Written for the practicing systematist and phylogeneticist, it addresses both the philosophical and technical issues of the field, as well as surveys general practices in taxonomy. Major sections of the book deal with the nature of species and higher taxa, homology and characters, trees and tree graphs, and biogeography—the purpose being to develop biologically relevant species, character, tree, and biogeographic concepts that can be applied fruitfully to phylogenetics. The book then turns its focus to phylogenetic trees, including an in-depth guide to tree-building algorithms. Additional coverage includes: Parsimony and parsimony analysis Parametric phylogenetics including maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches Phylogenetic classification Critiques of evolutionary taxonomy, phenetics, and transformed cladistics Specimen selection, field collecting, and curating Systematic publication and the rules of nomenclature Providing a thorough synthesis of the field, this important update to Phylogenetics is essential for students and researchers in the areas of evolutionary biology, molecular evolution, genetics and evolutionary genetics, paleontology, physical anthropology, and zoology.
Leading paleontologist J. David Archibald explores the rich history of visual metaphors for biological order from ancient times to the present and their influence on humans' perception of their place in nature, offering uncommon insight into how we went from standing on the top rung of the biological ladder to embodying just one tiny twig on the tree of life. He begins with the ancient but still misguided use of ladders to show biological order, moving then to the use of trees to represent seasonal life cycles and genealogies by the Romans. The early Christian Church then appropriated trees to represent biblical genealogies. The late eighteenth century saw the tree reclaimed to visualize relationships in the natural world, sometimes with a creationist view, but in other instances suggesting evolution. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) exorcised the exclusively creationist view of the "tree of life," and his ideas sparked an explosion of trees, mostly by younger acolytes in Europe. Although Darwin's influence waned in the early twentieth century, by midcentury his ideas held sway once again in time for another and even greater explosion of tree building, generated by the development of new theories on how to assemble trees, the birth of powerful computing, and the emergence of molecular technology. Throughout Archibald's far-reaching study, and with the use of many figures, the evolution of "tree of life" iconography becomes entwined with our changing perception of the world and ourselves.
Adaptive radiation is the evolution of diversity within a rapidly multiplying lineage. It can cause a single ancestral species to differentiate into an impressively vast array of species inhabiting a variety of environments. Much of life's diversity has arisen during adaptive radiations. Some of the most famous recent examples include the East African cichlid fishes, the Hawaiian silverswords, and of course, Darwin's Gal--aacute--;pagos finches,. This book evaluates the causes of adaptive radiation. It focuses on the 'ecological' theory of adaptive radiation, a body of ideas that began with Darwin and was developed through the early part of the 20th Century. This theory proposes that phenotypic divergence and speciation in adaptive radiation are caused ultimately by divergent natural selection arising from differences in environment and competition between species. In The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation the author re-evaluates the ecological theory, along with its most significant extensions and challenges, in the light of all the recent evidence. This important book is the first full exploration of the causes of adaptive radiation to be published for decades, written by one of the world's best young evolutionary biologists.
This is the story of a profound revolution in the way biologists explore life's history, understand its evolutionary processes, and reveal its diversity. It is about life's smallest entities, deepest diversity, and greatest cellular biomass: the microbiosphere. Jan Sapp introduces us to a new field of evolutionary biology and a new brand of molecular evolutionists who descend to the foundations of evolution on Earth to explore the origins of the genetic system and the primary life forms from which all others have emerged. In so doing, he examines-from Lamarck to the present-the means of pursuing the evolution of complexity, and of depicting the greatest differences among organisms. The New Foundations of Evolution takes us into a world that classical evolutionists could never have imagined: a deep phylogeny based on three domains of life and multiple kingdoms, and created by mechanisms very unlike those considered by Darwin and his followers. Evolution by leaps seems to occur regularly in the microbial world where molecular evolutionists have shown the inheritance of acquired genes and genomes are major modes of evolutionary innovation. Revisiting the history of microbiology for the first time from the perspective of evolutionary biology, Sapp shows why classical Darwinian conceptions centering on questions of the origin of species were forged without a microbial foundation, why classical microbiologists considered it impossible to know the course of evolution, and classical molecular biologists considered the evolution of the molecular genetic system to be beyond understanding. In telling this stirring story of scientific iconoclasm, this book elucidates how the new evolutionary biology arose, what methods and assumptions underpin it, and the fiery controversies that continue to shape biologists' understanding of the foundations of evolution today.
Standard reference provides full, compact descriptions of fungal pathogens and diseases they cause. Alphabetically arranged with copious references to the literature, nearly 9000 in all. Also, an excellent appendix of host plants, their major and minor pathogens, selected references, list of common and botanical names of host plants and two indexes of fungi.
Black & white print. Concepts of Biology is designed for the typical introductory biology course for nonmajors, covering standard scope and sequence requirements. The text includes interesting applications and conveys the major themes of biology, with content that is meaningful and easy to understand. The book is designed to demonstrate biology concepts and to promote scientific literacy.
Coevolution—reciprocal evolutionary change in interacting species driven by natural selection—is one of the most important ecological and genetic processes organizing the earth's biodiversity: most plants and animals require coevolved interactions with other species to survive and reproduce. The Geographic Mosaic of Coevolution analyzes how the biology of species provides the raw material for long-term coevolution, evaluates how local coadaptation forms the basic module of coevolutionary change, and explores how the coevolutionary process reshapes locally coevolving interactions across the earth's constantly changing landscapes. Picking up where his influential The Coevolutionary Process left off, John N. Thompsonsynthesizes the state of a rapidly developing science that integrates approaches from evolutionary ecology, population genetics, phylogeography, systematics, evolutionary biochemistry and physiology, and molecular biology. Using models, data, and hypotheses to develop a complete conceptual framework, Thompson also draws on examples from a wide range of taxa and environments, illustrating the expanding breadth and depth of research in coevolutionary biology.