On the Origin of Species outlines Charles Darwin's world-changing theory that life on Earth had not been brought into being by a creator, but had arisen from a single common ancestor and had evolved over time through the process of natural selection. This beautiful Macmillan Collector's Library edition of On the Origin of Species is complete and unabridged, and features an afterword by Oliver Francis. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure. Received with both enthusiasm and hostility on its publication, it triggered a seismic shift in our understanding of humanity's place in the natural world. It is not only a brilliant work of science but also a clear, vivid, sometimes moving piece of popular writing that reflects both Darwin's genius and his boundless enthusiasm for our planet and its species.

Synthesizing the findings from a wide range of disciplines - from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics - the emerging field of Biosemiotics explores the highly complex phenomenon of sign processing in living systems. Seeking to advance a naturalistic understanding of the evolution and development of sign-dependent life processes, contemporary biosemiotic theory offers important new conceptual tools for the scientific understanding of mind and meaning, for the development of artificial intelligence, and for the ongoing research into the rich diversity of non-verbal human, animal and biological communication processes.

Donald Favareau's Essential Readings in Biosemiotics has been designed as a single-source overview of the major works informing this new interdiscipline, and provides scholarly historical and analytical commentary on each of the texts presented. The first of its kind, this book constitutes a valuable resource to both bioscientists and to semioticians interested in this emerging new discipline, and can function as a primary textbook for students in biosemiotics, as well.

Moreover, because of its inherently interdisciplinary nature and its focus on the 'big questions' of cognition, meaning and evolutionary biology, this volume should be of interest to anyone working in the fields of cognitive science, theoretical biology, philosophy of mind, evolutionary psychology, communication studies or the history and philosophy of science.

"Barash . . . brilliantly integrat[es] science, literature, and pop culture into elegant and insightful commentaries on the most interesting and important questions of our time. A delightful read."-Michael Shermer, author of The Science of Good and Evil "Entertaining and thought-provoking."-Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate If we are, in part, a product of our genes, can free will exist? Incisive and engaging, this indispensable tour of evolutionary biology runs the gamut of contemporary debates, from science and religion to our place in the universe. David Barash is the author of The Myth of Monogamy and Madame Bovary's Ovaries. He lives in Redmond, Washington.

This book explores the relationship between cultural strategies and their biological outcomes, combining for the first time an ecosystems approach with cultural anthropological, archaeological and evolutionary behavioural concepts. Beginning with resource use and food procurement behaviour, the text examines major subsistence modes, the circumstances and dynamics of large-scale subsistence change, the effect of social differentiation on resource use and the effects of subsistence behaviour on population development and regulation.

Are humans a galactic oddity, or will complex life with human abilities develop on planets with environments that remain habitable for long enough? In a clear, jargon-free style, two leading researchers in the burgeoning field of astrobiology critically examine the major evolutionary steps that led us from the distant origins of life to the technologically advanced species we are today. Are the key events that took life from simple cells to astronauts unique occurrences that would be unlikely to occur on other planets? By focusing on what life does - it's functional abilities - rather than specific biochemistry or anatomy, the authors provide plausible answers to this question. Systematically exploring the various pathways that led to the complex biosphere we experience on planet Earth, they show that most of the steps along that path are likely to occur on any world hosting life, with only two exceptions: One is the origin of life itself - if this is a highly improbable event, then we live in a rather "empty universe". However, if this isn't the case, we inevitably live in a universe containing a myriad of planets hosting complex as well as microbial life - a "cosmic zoo". The other unknown is the rise of technologically advanced beings, as exemplified on Earth by humans. Only one technological species has emerged in the roughly 4 billion years life has existed on Earth, and we don't know of any other technological species elsewhere. If technological intelligence is a rare, almost unique feature of Earth's history, then there can be no visitors to the cosmic zoo other than ourselves. Schulze-Makuch and Bains take the reader through the history of life on Earth, laying out a consistent and straightforward framework for understanding why we should think that advanced, complex life exists on planets other than Earth. They provide a unique perspective on the question that puzzled the human species for centuries: are we alone?

Mites are very small animals, characterized by wingless and eyeless bodies, in which sociality has been discovered. This book offers detailed descriptions of the diverse social systems and the social evolution of mites, ranging from genetic to ecological aspects. Through a broad spectrum of studies including traditional natural history, taxonomy, modern evolutionary and behavioral ecology, and theoretical models as well, the book addresses a number of important findings on plant mite evolution and species radiation, with the author succeeding in combining theoretical and practical approaches in behavioral ecology by proposing a new game theory. These findings reflect the complex evolutionary history of these taxa and also help to point out clearly what is known and what is not yet known to date. Mites have been considered a minor animal group, but the author shows that mites actually possess great diversity and therefore make unique materials for evolutionary and behavioral studies.

1. 1 Nautilus and Allonautilus: Two Decades of Progress W. Bruce Saunders Department of Geology Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr PA 19010 wsaunder@brynmawr. edu Neil H. Landman Division of Paleontology American Museum of Natural History New York, New York 10024 landman@amnh. org When Nautilus: Biology and Paleobiology of a Living Fossil was published in 1987, it marked a milestone in cross-disciplinary collaboration. More than half of the contributing authors (36/65) were paleontologists, many of whom were collaborating with neontological counterparts. Their interest in studying this reclusive, poorly known animal was being driven by a search for clues to the mode of life and natural history of the once dominant shelled cephalopods, through study of the sole surviving genus. At the same time, Nautilus offered an opportunity for neontologists to look at a fundamentally different, phylogenetically basal member of the extant Cephalopoda. It was a w- win situation, combining paleontological deep-time perspectives, old fashioned expeditionary zeal, traditional biological approaches and new techniques. The results were cross-fertilized investigations in such disparate fields as ecology, functional morphology, taphonomy, genetics, phylogeny, locomotive dynamics, etc. As one reviewer of the xxxvi Introduction xxxvii book noted, Nautilus had gone from being one of the least known to one of the best understood of living cephalopods.

This volume features a collection of essays by primatologists, anthropologists, biologists, and psychologists who offer some answers to the question of what makes us human, i. e. , what is the nature and width of the gap that separates us from other primates? The chapters of this volume summarize the latest research on core aspects of behavioral and cognitive traits that make humans such unusual animals. All contributors adopt an explicitly comparative approach, which is based on the premise that comparative studies of our closest biological relatives, the nonhuman primates, provide the logical foundation for identifying human univ- sals as well as evidence for evolutionary continuity in our social behavior. Each of the chapters in this volume provides comparative analyses of relevant data from primates and humans, or pairs of chapters examine the same topic from a human or primatological perspective, respectively. Together, they cover six broad topics that are relevant to identifying potential human behavioral universals. Family and social organization. Predation pressure is thought to be the main force favoring group-living in primates, but there is great diversity in the size and structure of social groups across the primate order. Research on the behavioral ecology of primates and other animals has revealed that the distribution of males and females in space and time can be explained by sex-speci?c adaptations that are sensitive to factors that limit their ?tness: access to resources for females and access to potential mates for males.

Taking us on an incredible journey across centuries and galaxies, accompanied by his characteristic wit, Professor Luke O'Neill explains how it all began, how it all will end and everything in between. Readers will benefit from Luke's insatiable curiosity for life when they dive into this ultimate journey through life and death. Among many fascinating facts, you'll discover the science behind how we got to be so smart, why sex with a caveman was a good idea, the science of finding love, why we follow religions, and how robots will become part of everyday life. Humanology is a humbling reminder that we're just a small speck in a big universe - so sit back and embrace the adventure. 'A man who can explain 4.2 billion years of life on Earth and make me laugh at the same time - sheer genius.' Pat Kenny, Newstalk

Sex is the queen of problems in evolutionary biology. Generations of researchers have investigated one of the last remaining evolutionary paradoxes: why sex exists at all. Given that sexual reproduction is costly from an evolutionary point of view, one could wonder why not all animals and plants reproduce asexually. Dozens of contemporary hypotheses attempt to explain the prevalence of sex and its advantages and predict the early extinction of fully asexual lineages. The major theme of this book is: what is the fate of animal and plant groups in which sex is lost? Initial chapters discuss theory behind asexual life: what major disadvantages do asexual groups have to face, what are the genetic and ecological consequences and what does this theory predict for more applied aspects of asexual life, for example in agricultural pests, diseases as well as in cultural crops such as grapes. Cases studies in many animals (focusing on both invertebrates and vertebrates) and plants reveal parallel, but also singularly novel adaptations to the absence of meiosis and syngamy. And last but not least, are asexuals really doomed to early extinction or do genuine ancient asexuals exist? This book assembles contributions from the most important research groups dealing with asexual evolution in eukaryotes. It is a milestone in research on parthenogenesis and will be useful to undergraduate as well as graduate students and to senior researchers in all fields of evolutionary biology, as the paradox of sex remains its queen of problems. Written for: All who are interested in parthenogenesis and evolutionary biology, including undergraduate and graduate students and senior researchers

Michael P. Richards and Jean-Jacques Hublin The study of hominin diets, and especially how they have (primates, modern humans), (2) faunal and plant studies, (3) evolved throughout time, has long been a core research archaeology and paleoanthropology, and (4) isotopic studies. area in archaeology and paleoanthropology, but it is also This volume therefore presents research articles by most of becoming an important research area in other fields such as these participants that are mainly based on their presentations primatology, nutrition science, and evolutionary medicine. at the symposium. As can hopefully be seen in the volume, Although this is a fundamental research topic, much of the these papers provide important reviews of the current research research continues to be undertaken by specialists and there in these areas, as well as often present new research on dietary is, with some notable exceptions (e. g. , Stanford and Bunn, evolution. 2001; Ungar and Teaford, 2002; Ungar, 2007) relatively lit- In the section on modern studies Hohmann provides a tle interaction with other researchers in other fields. This is review of the diets of non-human primates, including an unfortunate, as recently it has appeared that different lines interesting discussion of the role of food-sharing amongst of evidence are causing similar conclusions about the major these primates. Snodgrass, Leonard, and Roberston provide issues of hominid dietary evolution (i. e.

This ambitious book considers social scientific topics such as identity, community, sexual difference, self, and ecology from a microbial perspective. Harnessing research and evidence from earth systems science and microbiology, and particularly focusing on symbiosis and symbiogenesis, the book argues for the development of a microontology of life.

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) events encompass processes as varied as the exchange of genetic material between microbes coexisting in the same environment, between symbiotic bacteria and their eukaryotic hosts, and the evolution of organelles by symbiosis, in which whole genomes are acquired. In Horizontal Gene Transfer: Genomes in Flux, expert researchers contribute an overview of HGT concepts as well as specific case histories that highlight the most current progress to inspire future work. Divided into three sections, the volume begins with an overview of terminology, concepts and the implications of HGT on current evolutionary thought and philosophy, and continues with methods involving computer and bioinformatics analyses of genomic data as well as molecular biology techniques for identifying, quantifying, and differentiating instances of HGT. A section of case studies follows, which provides detailed accounts of how HGT has shaped evolution across the diversity of organisms and organismal lineages. As a volume of the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology (TM) series, this work provides the kind of detailed description and implementation advice that is crucial for getting optimal results. Cutting-edge and thoroughly detailed, Horizontal Gene Transfer: Genomes in Flux examines how HGT has contributed to genome evolution and how understanding HGT impacts our ability to accurately reconstruct and comprehend the web-like evolutionary history in order to aid scientists in furthering their own research.

Sika deer, the graceful spotted deer of Japanese and Chinese art, originally were native to Asia from far-east Russia to Vietnam to the islands of Japan and Taiwan. They are widely raised in captivity to supply velvet antler for traditional medicine. They also were introduced to Europe, North America, and New Zealand, where they compete or interbreed with native deer. Sika deer typically occupy lowland hardwood forests with low winter snow depths, where they thrive in sites disturbed by fire, storm, or logging. In high numbers they can severely impact vegetation though overgrazing, stripping bark from trees and damaging crop fields and forest plantations. Their numbers are high in many parts of Japan, moderate in Russia, and reduced or extinct in the wild in China, Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan. This book explores their basic biology, behavior, and ecology, including management for sport hunting, conservation or recovery of threatened populations, and resolution of conflict with humans in native and introduced lands.

How did life begin on the early Earth? We know that life today is driven by the universal laws of chemistry and physics. By applying these laws over the past ?fty years, en- mous progress has been made in understanding the molecular mechanisms that are the foundations of the living state. For instance, just a decade ago, the ?rst human genome was published, all three billion base pairs. Using X-ray diffraction data from crystals, we can see how an enzyme molecule or a photosynthetic reaction center steps through its catalytic function. We can even visualize a ribosome, central to all life, translate - netic information into a protein. And we are just beginning to understand how molecular interactions regulate thousands of simultaneous reactions that continuously occur even in the simplest forms of life. New words have appeared that give a sense of this wealth of knowledge: The genome, the proteome, the metabolome, the interactome. But we can't be too smug. We must avoid the mistake of the physicist who, as the twentieth century began, stated con?dently that we knew all there was to know about physics, that science just needed to clean up a few dusty corners. Then came relativity, quantum theory, the Big Bang, and now dark matter, dark energy and string theory. Similarly in the life sciences, the more we learn, the better we understand how little we really know. There remains a vast landscape to explore, with great questions remaining.

Human evolution explains how we have found ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Issues of modern living; depression, obesity, and environmental destruction, can be understood in relation to our evolutionary past. This book shows how an awareness of this past and its relation to the present can help limit their impact on the future.

Fitness and adaptation are fundamental characteristics of plant and animal species, enabling them to survive in their environment and to adapt to the inevitable changes in this environment. This is true for both the genetic resources of natural ecosystems as well as those used in agricultural production.

Extensive genetic variation exists between varieties/breeds in a species and amongst individuals within breeds. This variation has developed over very long periods of time. A major ongoing challenge is how to best utilize this variation to meet short-term demands whilst also conserving it for longer-term possible use.

Many animal breeding programs have led to increased performance for production traits but this has often been accompanied by reduced fitness. In addition, the global use of genetic resources prompts the question whether introduced genotypes are adapted to local production systems. Understanding the genetic nature of fitness and adaptation will enable us to better manage genetic resources allowing us to make efficient and sustainable decisions for the improvement or breeding of these resources.

This book had an ambitious goal in bringing together a sample of the world s leading scientists in animal breeding and evolutionary genetics to exchange knowledge to advance our understanding of these vital issues.

It has become received wisdom that our world is doomed, that we live in the End of Days. Bleak predictions by psychics and scientists alike portend extreme weather, droughts, famines and floods that will overtake humanity within the century, or sooner. If not global warming, then supervolcanoes, meteoric impacts, nuclear war, bioterrorism, or natural plagues will get us. But whatever happens, Michael Hanlon believes that humankind will go on...and on. The shape of things to come will be strange, and somewhat terrifying, but will very likely seem banal to the people who inhabit it in the future. Humankind may be thrown back to the Stone Age on hundreds of occasions and may come close to extinction. But recovery will follow--each time more rapidly than the last. The world of 10,000 years hence, let alone 100,000,000 years hence, will be strange and almost unrecognizable. But no matter how battered and re-born, it will still be "our" world, populated by "us" through eternity.

Evolution is a critical challenge for many areas of science, technology and development of society. The book reviews general evolutionary facts such as origin of life and evolution of the genome and clues to evolution through simple systems. Emerging areas of science such as "systems biology" and "bio-complexity" are founded on the idea that phenomena need to be understood in the context of highly interactive processes operating at different levels and on different scales. This is where physics meets complexity in nature, and where we must begin to learn about complexity if we are to understand it. Similarly, there is an increasingly urgent need to understand and predict the evolutionary behavior of highly interacting man-made systems, in areas such as communications and transport, which permeate the modern world. The same applies to the evolution of human networks such as social, political and financial systems, where technology has tended to vastly increase both the complexity and speed of interaction, which is sometimes effectively instantaneous. The book contains reviews on such diverse areas as evolution experiments with microorganisms, the origin and evolution of viruses, evolutionary dynamics of genes and environment in cancer development, aging as an evolution-facilitating program, evolution of vision and evolution of financial markets.

Evolution is a critical challenge for many areas of science, technology and development of society. The book reviews general evolutionary facts such as origin of life and evolution of the genome and clues to evolution through simple systems. Emerging areas of science such as "systems biology" and "bio-complexity" are founded on the idea that phenomena need to be understood in the context of highly interactive processes operating at different levels and on different scales. This is where physics meets complexity in nature, and where we must begin to learn about complexity if we are to understand it. Similarly, there is an increasingly urgent need to understand and predict the evolutionary behavior of highly interacting man-made systems, in areas such as communications and transport, which permeate the modern world. The same applies to the evolution of human networks such as social, political and financial systems, where technology has tended to vastly increase both the complexity and speed of interaction, which is sometimes effectively instantaneous. The book contains reviews on such diverse areas as evolution experiments with microorganisms, the origin and evolution of viruses, evolutionary dynamics of genes and environment in cancer development, aging as an evolution-facilitating program, evolution of vision and evolution of financial markets.

Every biological system is the outcome of its evolution; therefore, the deciphering of its evolutionary history is of tremendous importance to understand the biology of a system.

Since 1997 scientists of different disciplines have held an annual "Evolutionary Biology Meeting" at Marseille (France) in order to discuss their research developments, exchange ideas and start collaborations. Consisting of the most representative talks of the 11th meeting, this book provides an up-to-date overview of evolutionary concepts and how these concepts can be applied to a better understanding of various biological aspects. It is divided into the following four parts: Modelization of Evolution - Concepts in Evolutionary Biology - Knowledge - Applied Evolutionary Biology.

This book is an invaluable source of information not only for evolutionary biologists, but also for biologists in general.

Following centuries of debate about "nature and nurture" the discovery of DNA established the idea that nature (genes) determines who we are, relegating nurture (environment) to icing on the cake. Since the 1950s, the new science of epigenetics has demonstrated how cellular environments and certain experiences and behaviors influence gene expression at the molecular level, with significant implications for health and wellbeing. To the amazement of scientists, mapping the human genome indirectly supported these insights. Anthropologists Margaret Lock and Gisli Palsson outline vituperative arguments from Classical times about the relationship between nature and nurture, furthered today by epigenetic findings and the demonstration of a "reactive genome." The nature/nurture debate, they show, can never be put to rest, because these concepts are in constant flux in response to the new insights science continually offers.

This unique book is concerned with the general principles and theories of population ecology, based on the idea that the rules governing the dynamics of populations are relatively simple, and that the rich behavior we observe in nature is a consequence of the structure of the system rather than of the complexity of the underlying rules. From this perspective, the dynamic behavior of single-species populations is examined and an elementary feedback model of the population system is developed. This single-species model is refined and generalized by examining the mechanisms of population regulation.

The richly fossiliferous Neogene stratigraphic sections of the Dominican Republic serve as one of only a few geological research systems in the world where morphological stasis and punctuated speciation have been investigated in multiple lineages. This research system provides unprecedented opportunities for comparative studies of evolutionary stasis and change and their environmental and ecological contexts. In this volume, a diverse group of geologists and paleobiologists collectively focus their attention on this research system, providing an updated geological framework and a series of novel studies of evolutionary stasis and change among different lineages and associated ecological communities. This collection of studies illustrates the immense potential of collaborative, multidisciplinary, and field-based paleobiological research for studies of macroevolutionary change in the fossil record.

Gregory Bateson's contribution to 20th century thinking has appealed to scholars from a wide range of fields dealing in one way or another with aspects of communication and epistemology. A number of his insights were taken up and developed further in anthropology, psychology, evolutionary biology and communication theory. But the large, trans-disciplinary synthesis that, in his own mind, was his major contribution to science received little attention from the mainstream scientific communities. This book represents a major attempt to revise this deficiency. Scholars from ecology, biochemistry, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, anthropology and philosophy discuss how Bateson's thinking might lead to a fruitful reframing of central problems in modern science. Most important perhaps, Bateson's bioanthropology is shown to play a key role in developing the set of ideas explored in the new field of biosemiotics. The idea that organismic life is indeed basically semiotic or communicative lies at the heart of the biosemiotic approach to the study of life. The only book of its kind, this volume provides a key resource for the quickly-growing substratum of scholars in the biosciences, philosophy and medicine who are seeking an elegant new approach to exploring highly complex systems.