The field of molecular evolution has experienced explosive growth in recent years due to the rapid accumulation of genetic sequence data, continuous improvements to computer hardware and software, and the development of sophisticated analytical methods. The increasing availability of large genomic data sets requires powerful statistical methods to analyze and interpret them, generating both computational and conceptual challenges for the field.
Computational Molecular Evolution provides an up-to-date and comprehensive coverage of modern statistical and computational methods used...

This book examines our current understanding of the population dynamics of one kind of interaction--that between insect parasitoids and their hosts. Parasitoids are amongst the most abundant of all animals, and make up about 10% or more of metazoan species. Almost no insect species escape their attack. Host-parasitoid interactions were first modelled over fifty years ago, but for many years there was little good empirical information on the important factors that affect host and parasitoid populations. The models were very simple, and their predictions rather divorced from the complexity of...

Aboveground-Belowground Linkages provides the most up-to-date and comprehensive synthesis of recent advances in our understanding of the roles that interactions between aboveground and belowground communities play in regulating the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems, and their responses to global change. It charts the historical development of this field of ecology and evaluates what can be learned from the recent proliferation of studies on the ecological and biogeochemical significance of aboveground-belowground linkages.
The book is structured around four key topics:...

This pioneering graduate textbook provides readers with the concepts and practical tools required to understand the maximum entropy principle, and apply it to an understanding of ecological patterns. Rather than building and combining mechanistic models of ecosystems, the approach is grounded in information theory and the logic of inference. Paralleling the derivation of thermodynamics from the maximum entropy principle, the state variable theory of ecology developed in this book predicts realistic forms for all metrics of ecology that describe patterns in the distribution, abundance, and...

This pioneering graduate textbook provides readers with the concepts and practical tools required to understand the maximum entropy principle, and apply it to an understanding of ecological patterns. Rather than building and combining mechanistic models of ecosystems, the approach is grounded in information theory and the logic of inference. Paralleling the derivation of thermodynamics from the maximum entropy principle, the state variable theory of ecology developed in this book predicts realistic forms for all metrics of ecology that describe patterns in the distribution, abundance, and...

Living things are organized in a hierarchy of levels. Genes group together in cells, cells group together in organisms, and organisms group together in societies. Even different species form mutualistic partnerships. Throughout the history of life, previously independent units have formed groups that, in time, have come to resemble individuals in their own right. Evolutionary biologists term such events "the major transitions." The process common to them all is social evolution. Each transition occurs only if natural selection favors one unit joining with another in a new kind of group. This...

Living things are organized in a hierarchy of levels. Genes group together in cells, cells group together in organisms, and organisms group together in societies. Even different species form mutualistic partnerships. Throughout the history of life, previously independent units have formed groups that, in time, have come to resemble individuals in their own right. Evolutionary biologists term such events "the major transitions." The process common to them all is social evolution. Each transition occurs only if natural selection favors one unit joining with another in a new kind of group. This...

Highlights the importance of mitonuclear coadaptation to the evolution of complex life and in so doing will help to establish mitonuclear ecology as an important subdiscipline in ecology and evolution.