Kategoria BISAC: Science >> Life Sciences - Evolution

Principles of Evolution covers all aspects of the subject. Following an introductory section that provides necessary background, it has chapters on the evidence for evolution that cover the fossil record, DNA-sequence homologies, and protein homologies (evo-devo). It also includes a full history of life from the first universal common ancestor, through the rise of the eukaryote and on to the major groups of phyla. This section is followed by one on the mechanism of evolution with chapters on variation, selection and speciation. The main part of the book ends with a chapter on...

The howling monkeys of Barro Colorado Island in Panama have a rudimentary language which serves the needs of their social activities. The red deer of Scotland, the seals of the Pribilof Islands, the beavers, the social insects, the army ants and termites, and lastly the colonial and single-celled organisms such as amoebae all meet the same basic biological necessities of feeding, reproduction, and social coordination. Though the means of meeting the requirements are amazingly varied, Mr. Bonner shows that these three functions form a basic pattern that can be recognized in amoebae, in...

In a book that has become a milestone of scientific writing Dr. Blum uses "time's arrow," the second law of thermodynamics, as a key concept to show how the nature and evolution of the nonliving world place limits on the nature and evolution of life. He seeks to show that, from the beginning of the universe, physical and chemical laws have inexorably channeled the course of evolution so that possibilities were already limited when life first emerged.

Originally published in 1951.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make...

Since its discovery in I960, the hybridization of somatic cells has evolved from a biological curiosity into an analytical method that today underlies nearly all investigations of the genetic aspects of various biological phenomena. As an eyewitness to this development from its inception forward, Boris Ephrussi here relates the history of somatic hybridization and the formation of its methodology, lie follows with a discussion of the characteristics and properties of the resultant hybrid cells. Together, these topics comprise an authoritative introduction to the principles of the...

An international group of distinguished scientists presents an up-to-date survey of quantitative problems at the forefront of modern evolutionary theory. Their articles illustrate results from the latest research in population and behavioral genetics, molecular evolution, and ecology. Each author gives careful attention to the exposition of the models, the logic of their analysis, and the legitimacy of qualitative biological inferences. The topics covered include stochastic models of finite populations and the sorts of diffusion approximations that are valid for their study, models of...

Scientists have recently begun to question one of the pillars of modern thought--Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Certainly evolution occurs; but if it is a slow, continuous process by which one species gradually modifies itself into a new one, as Darwin believed, why are there so many missing links in the fossil records? Two eminent scientists, Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould, startled the world by challenging Darwin's cherished beliefs proposing instead that once a species has evolved it rarely undergoes change, and that the evolution of new species occurs only periodically, in...

Through an integration of systematics, genetics, and related disciplines, the Modern Synthesis of Evolutionary Biology came into being over fifty years ago. Knowledge of evolution has since been transformed by several revolutions: the way we interpret the fossil record has been radically affected by theories of continental drift and asteroid impacts; the way we classify organisms has been influenced by the development of cladistics. Perhaps the most dramatic revolution has been the explosion in molecular biology of information about the genome. Aiming to capture the excitement of modern...

Long before Charles Darwin undertook his first voyage, animal taxonomists had begun the scientific classification of animals, plants, and minerals. In the mid-1950s, taxonomist A. J. Cain summarized the state of knowledge about the structure of the living world in his major book Animal Species and Their Evolution. His work remains remarkably current today. Here Cain explains each of the terms by which scientists now classify all animals--from species through genus, family, order, class, and phylum.

The work of the modern taxonomist is dependent on the work of paleontologists,...

By focusing on the crucial role of environment in the process of adaptation, Robert Brandon clarifies definitions and principles so as to help make the argument of evolution by natural selection empirically testable. He proposes that natural selection is the process of differential reproduction resulting from differential adaptedness to a common selective environment.

Originally published in 1990.

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As the study of cooperative breeding systems expands, a number of key species form the examples that underpin our general understanding. The ostrich is increasingly becoming such a textbook species, on the basis of the results obtained in Brian Bertram's study of vigilance and egg discrimination in this extraordinary bird. Here Bertram presents new data on the ostrich communal nesting system, in which several females lay in one female's nest, with only one female and the male doing all the work. The Ostrich Communal Nesting System unravels the basis of the cooperation observed, and...

Wie Wolfgang Wickler in seinem kurzen, kompakten und seit seinem erstmaligem Erscheinen im Jahr 1967 immer noch aktuellen Werk zeigt, strebt die vergleichende Verhaltensforschung danach, charakteristische Verhaltensmerkmale und Fahigkeiten von Tieren und Menschen zu beschreiben und zu dokumentieren. Auch heutige Forschung mochte verstehen, warum und wie diese entstanden sind. Einen nach wie vor wichtigen Forschungsschwerpunkt bildet deshalb die Frage nach der evolutionaren Herkunft von Formen, Mechanismen und Funktionen der verschiedenen Verhaltensweisen.

Erlautert werden die...