This book describes the interlaced histories of life and oxygen. It opens with the generation of oxygen in ancient stars and its distribution to newly formed planets like the Earth. Free O2 was not available on the early Earth, so the first life forms had to be anaerobic. Life introduced free O2 into the environment through the evolution of photosynthesis, which must have been a disaster for many anaerobes. Others found ways to deal with the toxic reactive oxygen species and even developed a much more efficient oxygen-based metabolism. The authors vividly describe how the introduction of O2 allowed the burst of evolution that created today's biota. They also discuss the interplay of O2 and CO2, with consequences such as worldwide glaciations and global warming. On the physiological level, they present an overview of oxidative metabolism and O2 transport, and the importance of O2 in human life and medicine, emphasizing that while oxygen is essential, it is also related to aging and many disease states.

Radiations, or Evolution in Action We have just celebrated the "Darwin Year" with the double anniversary of his 200th birthday and 150th year of his masterpiece, "On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection". In this work, Darwin established the factual evidence of biological evolution, that species change over time, and that new organisms arise by the splitting of ancestral forms into two or more descendant species. However, above all, Darwin provided the mechanisms by arguing convincingly that it is by natural selection - as well as by sexual selection (as he later added) - that organisms adapt to their environment. The many discoveries since then have essentially con?rmed and strengthened Darwin's central theses, with latest evidence, for example, from molecular genetics, revealing the evolutionary relationships of all life forms through one shared history of descent from a common ancestor. We have also come a long way to progressively understand more on how new species actually originate, i. e. on speciation which remained Darwin's "mystery of m- teries", as noted in one of his earliest transmutation notebooks. Since speciation is the underlying mechanism for radiations, it is the ultimate causation for the biological diversity of life that surrounds us.

Converging evidence from disciplines including sociobiology, evolutionary psychology and human biology forces us to adopt a new idea of what it means to be a human. As cherished concepts such as free will, naive realism, humans as creation's crowning glory fall and our moral roots in ape group dynamics become clearer, we have to take leave of many concepts that have been central to defining our humanness. What emerges is a new human, the homo novus, a human being without illusions. Leading authors from many different fields explore these issues by addressing a range of illusions and providing evidence for the need, despite considerable reluctance, to relinquish some of our most cherished ideas about ourselves.

All animals and plants form associations with hundreds or thousands of different beneficial microorganisms. These symbiotic microbes play an important role in the development, adaptation, health and evolution of their hosts. This book brings together a group of diverse biologists to discuss microbial interactions with multicellular life forms including insects, corals, plants, and mammals, including humans. The various mechanisms by which microorganisms benefit their hosts are discussed, including providing essential nutrients, preventing disease, inducing the immune system, and combating stress. Since the microbiota can be transferred from parent to offspring, it plays an important role in the origin and evolution of animal and plant species. This book should be of interest to the widest range of biological scientists, merging the studies of host and microbial physiology, symbiosis, and the ecology and evolution of symbiotic partners.

The annual Evolutionary Biology Meetings in Marseille aim to bring together leading scientists, promoting an exchange of state-of-the-art knowledge and the formation of inter-group collaborations. This book presents the most representative contributions to the 13th meeting, which was held in September 2009. It comprises 21 chapters, which are organized into the following three categories: * Evolutionary Biology Concepts * Genome/Molecular Evolution * Morphological Evolution/Speciation This book offers an up-to-date overview of evolutionary biology concepts and their use in the biology of the 21st century.

The annual Evolutionary Biology Meetings in Marseilles serve to gather leading evolutionary biologists and other scientists using evolutionary biology concepts, e.g. for medical research. The aims of these meetings are to promote the exchange of ideas and to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations. This book collects 19 selected contributions presented at the 15th meeting, which took place in September 2011. It starts with a description of the life and work of J.B.S. Haldane, a remarkable evolutionary biologist of the 20th century. The remaining chapters are grouped under the following three themes: * New Concepts in Evolutionary Biology * Macroevolution: Mechanisms and Trends * Genome Evolution Offering an up-to-date overview of recent results in the field of evolutionary biology, this book is an invaluable source of information for scientists, teachers and advanced students.

Pollination is one of the most important processes in plant reproduction. It directly influences reproductive success and fitness and the genetic structure of the plant population. Methods exist to infer the pattern and distance of pollen dispersal, but direct observation of the movements of individual pollen grains during pollination is not feasible owing to their small size. Single-pollen genotyping is a novel technique for genotyping a single pollen grain. In this book, the principles, the experimental protocol, and several applications of this method in studies of plant ecology, reproductive biology, and evolutionary genetics have been described. More specifically, the information is useful for the analysis of linkage disequilibrium, intraspecific genetic variation, chromosome mapping, and the origins of polyploidy. It is also essential for achieving sustainable and optimal crop yield and is vital to agriculture and forestry. Written by pioneer researchers, the book provides novel research approaches that are proving useful in a growing number of fields. This volume is intended to encourage new and continued applications of single-pollen genotyping among many disciplines in the future.

This book encapsulates over three decades of the author's work on comparative functional respiratory morphology. It provides insights into the mechanism(s) by which respiratory means and processes originated and advanced to their modern states. Pertinent cross-disciplinary details and facts have been integrated and reexamined in order to arrive at more robust answers to questions regarding the basis of the functional designs of gas exchangers. The utilization of oxygen for energy production is an ancient process, the development and progression of which were underpinned by dynamic events in the biological, physical, and chemical worlds. Many books that have broached the subject of comparative functional respiratory biology have only described the form and function of the 'end-product,' the gas exchanger; they have scarcely delved into the factors and the conditions that motivated and steered the development from primeval to modern respiratory means and processes. This book addresses and answers broad questions concerning the critical synthesis of multidisciplinary data, and clarifies previously cryptic aspects of comparative respiratory biology.

Although birds have a rather uniform body plan and physiology, they exhibit marked variation in development type, parental care, and rate of growth. This makes them ideal for studying and understanding evolutionary adaptation. Presenting an integrative perspective of organism biology, ecology, and evolution, this book is a case study in evolutionary diversification of life histories.

Since 1997, scientists of different disciplines sharing a deep interest in concepts and knowledge related to evolutionary biology have held the annual Evolutionary Biology Meetings in Marseille in order to discuss their research and promote collaboration. Lately scientists especially focusing on applications have also joined the group. This book starts with the report of the "12th Evolutionary Biology Meeting", which gives a general idea of the meeting's epistemological stance. This is followed by 22 chapters, a selection of the most representative contributions, which are grouped under the following four themes: Part I Concepts and Knowledge - Part II Modelization - Part III Applied Evolutionary Biology - Part IV Applications in Other Fields -Part IV transcends the field of biology, presenting applications of evolutionary biology in economics and astronomy.

Coordination in Human and Primate Groups presents one of the first collections of the different approaches and methods used to assess coordination processes in groups. Written by psychologists and primatologists, the book represents a broad range of coordination research fields such as social psychology, work and organizational psychology, medicine, primatology, and behavioural ecology. It is designed for researchers and practitioners interested in understanding the behavioural aspects of group coordination.

Timing, racing, combating, struggling and targeting are some actions through which cellular fate could be reflected and evaluated. Interaction between cell territory and environment occur during pre-embryonic, fetal development, and post-natal periods. What the researchers observe as the outcome of telomeres behavior is only the peak of an ice mountain within a stormy ocean. Cellular life depends on programmed behavior of telomeres, capable to surprise the cells. Telomeres provide an introduction to the history of our cells which govern the quality of life and status of health. Telomeres as the cooperative territory are capable of stabilizing the chromosomal territory. The status of telomeres reflects the key information, announcing the real age of individuals, and may be a valuable marker for prognosis and predicting cancer. Telomere territory is characterized with a multi-disciplinary manner. Therefore, this book is aimed to offer a wide range of chapters, hoping to be useful for diverse audiences, including hematologists-oncologists, radiotherapists, surgeons, cancer researchers, and all the sectors who affect the macro- and micro- environmental domains. Finally, telomeres are sensitive, cooperative, and trustable targets. It is worth to state that 'telomeres are messengers of NATURE', let's to know them as they are.

Heterogeneous Enantioselective Hydrogenation: Theory and Practice reviews the development of enantioselective hydrogenation reaction catalysts. It looks at the first relatively ineffective catalysts right through to modern highly effective enantioselective catalytic systems, comparable in their efficiency to chiral metal complexes and enzymatic systems. The book begins with a summary of the first work on heterogeneous metal catalysts, which showed only the principal possibilities of enantioselective reactions. It then elaborates on metal catalysts which have enantioselectivities close to 100%. Finally, the practical utilization of chiral catalytic systems in processes of hydrogenation is described. The alpha- and beta-hydroxy carboxylic acid esters produced are precursors for manufacturing many synthones used for medicines as well as for monomers used for biodegradable polyesters, both of which have important practical applications. The volume summarizes more than 800 scientific papers in the field of enantioselective catalytic hydrogenation reactions, mainly those using heterogeneous metal catalysts. It provides detailed explanations of special techniques for the preparation of effective dissymmetric catalysts which provide highly efficient catalytic systems.

Mitochondria and chloroplasts are eukaryotic organelles that evolved from bacterial ancestors and harbor their own genomes. The gene products of these genomes work in concert with those of the nuclear genome to ensure proper organelle metabolism and biogenesis. This book explores the forces that have shaped the evolution of organelle genomes and the expression of the genes encoded by them. Some striking examples of trends in organelle evolution explored here are the reduction in genome size and gene coding content observed in most lineages, the complete loss of organelle DNA in certain lineages, and the unusual modes of gene expression that have emerged, such as the extensive and essential mRNA editing that occurs in plant mitochondria and chloroplasts. This book places particular emphasis on the current techniques used to study the evolution of organelle genomes and gene expression.

In this monograph, new combinatorial and computational approaches in the study of RNA structures are presented which enhance both mathematics and computational biology. It begins with an introductory chapter, which motivates and sets the background of this research. In the following chapter, all the concepts are systematically developed. The reader will find * integration of more than forty research papers covering topics like, RSK-algorithm, reflection principle, singularity analysis and random graph theory * systematic presentation of the theory of pseudo-knotted RNA structures including their generating function, uniform generation as well as central and discrete limit theorems * computational biology of pseudo-knotted RNA structures, including dynamic programming paradigms and a new folding algorithm * analysis of neutral networks of pseudo knotted RNA structures and their random graph theory, including neutral paths, giant components and connectivity All algorithms presented are freely available through springer.com and implemented in C. A proofs section at the end contains the necessary technicalities. This book will serve graduate students and researchers in the fields of discrete mathematics, mathematical and computational biology. It is suitable as a textbook for a graduate course in mathematical and computational biology.

This volume celebrates the contributions of Dr. Eugene Gaffney to the study of turtles, through a diverse and complementary collection of papers that showcases the latest research on one of the most intriguing groups of reptiles. A mix of focused and review papers deals with numerous aspects of the evolutionary history of turtles, including embryonic development, origins, early diversification, phylogenetic relationships, and biogeography. Moreover it includes reports on important but poorly understood fossil turtle assemblages, provides historical perspectives on turtle research, and documents disease and variation in turtles. With its broad scope, which includes descriptions of material and new taxa from Australia, Asia, and Europe, as well as North and South America, this work will be an essential resource for anyone interested in the morphology and evolution of turtles. "This volume's breadth of time, geography, and taxonomic coverage makes it a major contribution to the field and a 'must have' for all vertebrate paleontologists.", James F. Parham, California State University, CA, USA "A comprehensive and sweeping overview of turtle evolution by the top experts in the field that will interest everyone curious about these unique reptiles." Jason S. Anderson, University of Calgary, Canada "An invaluable addition to the literature that covers the full spectrum of approaches toward understanding the evolution of these noble creatures." Ann C. Burke, Wesleyan University, CT , USA "A truly comprehensive volume that both the student of fossil turtles, as well as the general reader interested in these enigmatic creatures, will find fascinating." Tyler Lyson, Yale University, CT, USA

South Africa's fynbos region has intrigued biologists for centuries. It has achieved iconic status as a locus of megadiversity and therefore a place to study the ecological underpinnings of massive evolutionary radiations. Researchers have made great advances over the past two decades in unravelling the complexities of fynbos ecology and evolution, and the region has contributed significant insights into the adaptive radiations of large lineages, conservation science, pollination biology, invasive plant biology, and palaeoanthropology. Lessons from the fynbos offer much of value for understanding the origin, maintenance, and conservation of diversity anywhere in the world. This book provides the first synthesis of the field for 20 years, bringing together the latest ecological and evolutionary research on the South African global biodiversity hotspots of the Greater Cape Floristic Region - the iconic fynbos and succulent karoo. It explores the historical and modern physical and biological environment of this region, the circumstances and processes which have fostered its remarkable biodiversity, and the role this diversity has played in the emergence of modern humans. It also discusses the challenges of contemporary management and conservation of the region's biodiversity in the face of accelerating global change.

The Development of an Extraordinary Species

We human beings share 98 percent of our genes with chimpanzees. Yet humans are the dominant species on the planet -- having founded civilizations and religions, developed intricate and diverse forms of communication, learned science, built cities, and created breathtaking works of art -- while chimps remain animals concerned primarily with the basic necessities of survival. What is it about that two percent difference in DNA that has created such a divergence between evolutionary cousins? In this fascinating, provocative, passionate, funny, endlessly entertaining work, renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning author and scientist Jared Diamond explores how the extraordinary human animal, in a remarkably short time, developed the capacity to rule the world . . . and the means to irrevocably destroy it.

Life is a diverse and ubiquitous phenomenon on Earth, characterized by fundamental features distinguishing living bodies from nonliving material. Yet it is also so complex that it has long defied precise definition. This book from a seasoned biologist offers new insights into the nature of life by illuminating a fascinating architecture of dualities inherent in its existence and propagation. Life is connected with individual living beings, yet it is also a collective and inherently global phenomenon of the material world. It embodies a dual existence of cycles of phenotypic life, and their unseen driver - an uninterrupted march of genetic information whose collective immortality is guaranteed by individual mortality. Although evolution propagates and tunes species of organisms, the beings produced can be regarded merely as tools for the survival and cloning of genomes written in an unchanging code. What are the physical versus informational bases and driving forces of life, and how do they unite as an integrated system? What does time mean for individuals, life on the global scale, and the underlying information? This accessible examination of principles and evidence shows that a network of dualities lies at the heart of biological puzzles that have engaged the human mind for millennia.

Psychiatry and Psychosomatic Medicine are concerned with medical conditions affecting brain, mind and behaviour in manifold ways. Traditional approaches have focused on a restricted array of potential causes of psychiatric and psychosomatic conditions - including adverse experiences such as trauma, neglect or abuse, genetic vulnerability and epigenetic regulation of gene expression. Whilst essential for the understanding of mental disorders, these approaches have disregarded important questions such as why the human mind is vulnerable to dysfunction at all. The Textbook of Evolutionary Psychiatry and Psychosomatic Medicine updates and expands the previous edition to provide answers to these questions by emphasising an evolutionary perspective on psychiatric and psychosomatic conditions. It explains how the human brain/mind has been shaped by natural and sexual selection; why adaptations to environmental conditions in our evolutionary past may nowadays work in suboptimal ways; and how human cognition, emotions, and behaviour can be scientifically framed to improve our understanding of how people try to attain important biosocial goals pertaining to one's status in society, mating, eliciting and providing care, and maintaining rewarding relationships. The evolutionary topics relevant to the understanding of psychiatric and psychosomatic conditions include the concepts of genetic plasticity, life history theory, stress regulation and immunological aspects. In addition, it is argued that an evolutionary framework is also necessary to understand how psychotherapy and psychopharmacology work to improve the lives of patients with psychiatric and psychosomatic disorders. The Textbook of Evolutionary Psychiatry and Psychosomatic Medicine is a valuable text for all students of Psychology, Medicine, and Psychotherapy who seek an understanding of the evolutionary issues surrounding health and disease.

Tim Lewens aims to understand what it means to take an evolutionary approach to cultural change, and why it is that this approach is often treated with suspicion. Convinced of the exceptional power of natural selection, many thinkers-typically working in biological anthropology, cognitive psychology, and evolutionary biology-have suggested it should be freed from the confines of biology, and applied to cultural change in humans and other animals. At the same time, others-typically with backgrounds in disciplines like social anthropology and history-have been just as vocal in dismissing the evolutionary approach to culture. What drives these disputes over Darwinism in the social sciences? While making a case for the value of evolutionary thinking for students of culture, Lewens shows why the concerns of sceptics should not dismissed as mere prejudice, confusion, or ignorance. Indeed, confusions about what evolutionary approaches entail are propagated by their proponents, as well as by their detractors. By taking seriously the problems faced by these approaches to culture, Lewens shows how such approaches can be better formulated, where their most significant limitations lie, and how the tools of cultural evolutionary thinking might become more widely accepted.

The fIrst draft version of this book, written in systematics of Neoptera) had two different editions English and named "Draft revision of supraspecies in Russian - in 1999 and in 2000 (Kluge 2000). taxa of Ephemeroptera (without Atalophlebiinae)," English version of this fIrst volume is also prepared, was prepared as an Internet publication in 1998; but not published yet. thanks to Dr. Michael Hubbard (Florida A & M Uni versity), it has been available from the web site "Ephemeroptera Galactica" since 1998. The second NEW TERMS, TAXA NAMES AND version, written in Russian and named "Revision of SYNONYMS supra-species taxa of Ephemeroptera (except for Atalophlebialfgl)," was prepared as an Internet publication in 2000; from 2001 till now it has been New terms: plesiomorphon (instead of wrongly available from the web site of Biological Faculty of used "plesion," p. 16); basitornal margin, tornoapical S-Petersburg University, http: //www. bio. pu. ruJwinl margin, amphitornal margin of wing or wing bud entomollKLUGEIEPHEMER -"content_. htm. Both (p. 31); tergalius (instead of formerly used "tergalia" versions contain the systematics of all mayflies or "tergalium," p. 35); caudalius, tricaudale, basitri except for Atalophlebialfgl. The present Volume 1 caudale, cercotractor (p. 38). does not contain the systematics of Turbanoculata For some morphological terms type taxa are (i. e. Baetidae auct. ) nor of all Leptophlebialfg1 (i. e. designated. Till now this was not practised, but in Leptophlebiidae auct."

Fernanda Antunes Carvalho addresses an issue of key importance to the field of systematics, namely how to foster taxonomic work and the dissemination of scientific knowledge about species by taking full advantage of electronic data and bioinformatics tools. The first part focuses on the development of an electronic monograph of the papaya family (Caricaceae) using existing infrastructures of Information Technology (IT) and bioinformatic tools that together set the stage for a new era of systematics. Based on the plastid and nuclear DNA data, the author inferred historical processes in the second part that may have shaped the evolution of the Caricaceae and explain their current geographic distribution. The last part is dedicated to the evolution of chromosome numbers in the Caricaceae and includes counts for species from three genera (Cylicomorpha, Horovitzia, Jarilla) that have never been investigated before.

This book presents 19 selected contributions to the 16th Evolutionary Biology Meeting, which took place in September 2012 in Marseilles. The aims of these annual meetings, which gather together leading evolutionary biologists and other scientists, are to promote the exchange of ideas and to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations. The first chapter deals with the history of a great discovery: The first experiments on ascidian and sea urchin egg fertilization. The remaining contributions are grouped under the following categories: * Evolutionary biology concepts * Exobiology and the origin of life * Evolutionary mechanisms Offering an up-to-date overview of recent findings in the field of evolutionary biology, this book is an invaluable source of information for scientists, teachers and advanced students.

This anthology is a compilation of the best contributions from Symbolic Species Conferences I, II (which took place in 2006, 2007).

In 1997 the American anthropologist Terrence Deacon published The Symbolic Species: The Coevolution of Language and the Brain. The book is widely considered a seminal work in the subject of evolutionary cognition. However, Deacons book was the first step further steps have had to be taken. The proposed anthology is such an important associate.

The contributions are written by a wide variety of scholars each with a unique view on evolutionary cognition and the questions raised by Terrence Deacon - emergence in evolution, the origin of language, the semiotic 'missing link', Peirce's semiotics in evolution and biology, biosemiotics, evolutionary cognition, Baldwinian evolution, the neuroscience of linguistic capacities as well as phylogeny of the homo species, primatology, embodied cognition and knowledge types. "