Biological evolution, the theory of natural selection and of common descent, is a triumph both of human reasoning and scientific undertaking. The biological discipline of evolution contains both a chronicle of human endeavour and the story of life on Earth. This book is concerned with living forms and how they developed from 'simple and unpromising beginnings'. It considers evolution as both process and product. The author, an experienced teacher and educator, employs a historical narrative, used to convey the idea of 'change with modification' and to emphasise the relevance of evolution to contemporary bioscience. Biological evolution has now become part of the scientific orthodoxy and this accessible text will assist undergraduate students in the biological sciences within any ongoing debate.
Author(s): Mike Cassidy
Series: Studies in Biology
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 278
City: Cambridge
Copyright
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Biological Evolution: The Beginnings of the Story
The Development of Evolution as a Science
The Years before Publication of Origin of Species
So, What Is Evolution?
Change and Species Formation
Natural History and Classification
Exploring the Development and Progress of Life on Earth
The Galapagos Islands and Darwin’s Finches: A Case Study
The Finches
Classification and the Galapagos Finches
Darwin’s Finches and the Origin of Species
The Galapagos Islands and Natural Selection
2 Reviewing the Evidence for Evolution
Homology and Comparative Anatomy
Embryology
Vestigial Organs
The Fossil Record
Fossils and Phylogeny
Biogeography
Observational and Experimental Evidence
3 Genetic Variation within Populations
Inheritance and Variation
Early Ideas Regarding the Continuity of Life
Biological Inheritance and the Work of Gregor Mendel
Mapping the Genome
Origins and Maintenance of Variation
Mutation
What Sorts of Genes Are Needed by Living Things?
Genotypic and Phenotypic Variation
Genes in Populations
Variation within Populations
Variation between Populations
Population Genetics
4 Natural Selection and Adaptive Change
Natural and Artificial Selection
Selection in Populations
Polymorphism
Heterozygote Advantage
Directional Selection and Local Adaptation
Sexual Selection
Genetic Drift and the Adaptive Landscape
The Unit of Selection
5 Evolution and Development
Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Evo-Devo)
The Epigenetic Landscape
Homeosis
Hox Genes
The Body Axes and Segmentation
The Dorsoventral Axis
Functional Analogy
The History of Hox Genes
The Divergence of Body Plans
Homeotic Genes and Control of Development in Higher Plants
Evolutionary Developmental Repatterning
6 The Origins of Biodiversity
Species Concepts
Isolating Mechanisms
Speciation
Speciation through Polyploidy
Parapatric Distribution, Speciation and Hybrid Zones
Sympatric Speciation
The Explosive Speciation of Cichlids
7 Taxonomy and the Diversity of Life
Linnaeus and Classification
Lamarck and the Scala Naturae
Classification and Evolution
Chasing Ancestors
Developing a Modern, Biological Classification
An Objective Classification?
Phenetics
Cladistics
Molecular Taxonomy
Nomenclature
Classification and Big Data
8 The History and Origins of Life on Earth
What Is Life: Characteristics of Living Things
Origins of Life
The First Organisms
Origins of the Eukaryotes and the Evolution of Sex
Multicellularity and the Higher Taxa
The Evolution of Animals
The Evolution of Plants
Movement onto Land
9 Molecules and Evolution
The Early Earth
Replication and the RNA World
Gene Trees
DNA and RNA Phylogenies
Rates of Molecular Evolution
Molecular Clocks
Phylogenomics and Transposable Elements
Lateral Gene Transfer
Genomics and ‘Big Science’
10 Human Evolution
Looking at Mammals
Becoming Human
Palaeobiology and the Human Lineage
Modern Humans
Evidence from the Human Genome
Human Success
Human Cultural Evolution
Are We Still Evolving?
11 Trends and Patterns in Evolution
Rates of Evolution
Measuring Rates of Evolutionary Change
Extinction and Patterns of Mass Extinction
Heterochrony and Life History Strategies
Are Trends in Evolution Progressive?
Biological Evolution As Science
12 Questions, Debate and Controversy
Questions in Evolutionary Biology
Life’s Continuing Existence
Evolution and Religion
From So Simple a Beginning
References
Recommended Reading
List of Figure Credits
List of Chapter Reviewers
Index
