Darwin's Camera tells the extraordinary story of how Charles Darwin changed the way pictures are seen and made.
In his illustrated masterpiece, Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1871), Darwin introduced the idea of using photographs to illustrate a scientific theory--his was the first photographically illustrated science book ever published. Using photographs to depict fleeting expressions of emotion--laughter, crying, anger, and so on--as they flit across a person's face, he managed to produce dramatic images at a time when photography was famously slow and awkward. The book describes how Darwin struggled to get the pictures he needed, scouring the galleries, bookshops, and photographic studios of London, looking for pictures to satisfy his demand for expressive imagery. He finally settled on one the giants of photographic history, the eccentric art photographer Oscar Rejlander, to make his pictures. It was a peculiar choice. Darwin was known for his meticulous science, while Rejlander was notorious for altering and manipulating photographs. Their remarkable collaboration is one of the astonishing revelations in Darwin's Camera.
Darwin never studied art formally, but he was always interested in art and often drew on art knowledge as his work unfolded. He mingled with the artists on the voyage of HMS Beagle, he visited art museums to examine figures and animals in paintings, associated with artists, and read art history books. He befriended the celebrated animal painters Joseph Wolf and Briton Riviere, and accepted the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor Thomas Woolner as a trusted guide. He corresponded with legendary photographers Lewis Carroll, Julia Margaret Cameron, and G.-B. Duchenne de Boulogne, as well as many lesser lights. Darwin's Camera provides the first examination ever of these relationships and their effect on Darwin's work, and how Darwin, in turn, shaped the history of art.

Animal life, now and over the past half billion years, is incredibly diverse. Describing and understanding the evolution of this diversity of body plans - from vertebrates such as humans and fish to the numerous invertebrate groups including sponges, insects, molluscs, and the many groups of worms - is a major goal of evolutionary biology. In this book, a group of leading researchers adopt a modern, integrated approach to describe how current molecular genetic techniques and disciplines as diverse as palaeontology, embryology, and genomics have been combined, resulting in a dramatic renaissance in the study of animal evolution.
The last decade has seen growing interest in evolutionary biology fuelled by a wealth of data from molecular biology. Modern phylogenies integrating evidence from molecules, embryological data, and morphology of living and fossil taxa provide a wide consensus of the major branching patterns of the tree of life; moreover, the links between phenotype and genotype are increasingly well understood. This has resulted in a reliable tree of relationships that has been widely accepted and has spawned numerous new and exciting questions that require a reassessment of the origins and radiation of animal life. The focus of this volume is at the level of major animal groups, the morphological innovations that define them, and the mechanisms of change to their embryology that have resulted in their evolution. Current research themes and future prospects are highlighted including phylogeny reconstruction, comparative developmental biology, the value of different sources of data and the importance of fossils, homology assessment, character evolution, phylogeny of major groups of animals, and genome evolution. These topics are integrated in the light of a 'new animal phylogeny', to provide fresh insights into the patterns and processes of animal evolution.
Animal Evolution provides a timely and comprehensive statement of progress in the field for academic researchers requiring an authoritative, balanced and up-to-date overview of the topic. It is also intended for both upper level undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in animal evolution, molecular phylogenetics, evo-devo, comparative genomics and associated disciplines.

The History of British Birds reviews our knowledge of avifaunal history over the last 15,000 years, setting it in its wider historical and European context. The authors, one an ornithologist the other an archaeologist, integrate a wealth of archaeological data to illuminate and enliven the story, indicating the extent to which climatic, agricultural, and social changes have affected the avifauna. They discuss its present balance, as well as predicting possible future changes.
It is a popular misconception that bird bones are rarely preserved (compared with mammals), and cannot be reliably identified when they are found. The book explores both of these contentions, armed with a database of 9,000 records of birds that have been identified on archaeological sites. Most are in England, but sites elsewhere in Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Isles are included.
Britain's most numerous bird is also the most widespread in the archaeological record, but some of the more charismatic species also have a rich historical pedigree. For example, we can say quite a lot about the history of the Crane, Red Kite, White-tailed Eagle, and Great Auk. The history of many introduced domestic species can also be illuminated. Even so, there remain uncertainties, posed by difficulties of dating or identification, the vagaries of the archaeological record or the ecological specialities of the birds themselves. These issues are highlighted, thus posing research questions for others to answer.
And the commonest British bird, then and now? Buy the book and read on...

RNA viruses provide unique insights into the patterns and processes of evolutionary change in real time. The study of viral evolution is especially topical given the growing awareness that emerging and re-emerging diseases (most of which are caused by RNA viruses) represent a major threat to public health. However, while the study of viral evolution has developed rapidly in the last 30 years, relatively little attention has been directed toward linking work on the mechanisms of viral evolution within cells or individual hosts, to the epidemiological outcomes of these processes. This novel book fills this gap by considering the patterns and processes of viral evolution across their entire range of spatial and temporal scales. The Evolution and Emergence of RNA Viruses provides a comprehensive overview of RNA virus evolution, with a particular focus on genomic and phylogenetic approaches. This is the first book to link mechanisms of viral evolution with disease dynamics, using high-profile examples in emergence and evolution such as influenza, HIV, dengue fever, and rabies. It also reveals the underlying evolutionary processes by which emerging viruses cross species boundaries and spread in new hosts.

The extent to which human activity has influenced species extinctions during the recent prehistoric past remains controversial due to other factors such as climatic fluctuations and a general lack of data. However, the Holocene (the geological interval spanning the last 11,500 years from the end of the last glaciation) has witnessed massive levels of extinctions that have continued into the modern historical era, but in a context of only relatively minor climatic fluctuations. This makes a detailed consideration of these extinctions a useful system for investigating the impacts of human activity over time. Holocene Extinctions describes and analyses the range of global extinction events which have occurred during this key time period, as well as their relationship to both earlier and ongoing species losses. By integrating information from fields as diverse as zoology, ecology, palaeontology, archaeology and geography, and by incorporating data from a broad range of taxonomic groups and ecosystems, this novel text provides a fascinating insight into human impacts on global extinction rates, both past and present. This truly interdisciplinary book is suitable for both graduate students and researchers in these varied fields. It will also be of value and use to policy-makers and conservation professionals since it provides valuable guidance on how to apply lessons from the past to prevent future biodiversity loss and inform modern conservation planning.

Why do we age? Why cooperate? Why do so many species engage in sex? Why do the tropics have so many species? When did humans start to affect world climate?
This book provides an introduction to a range of fundamental questions that have taxed evolutionary biologists and ecologists for decades. Some of the phenomena discussed are, on first reflection, simply puzzling to understand from an evolutionary perspective, whilst others have direct implications for the future of the planet. All of the questions posed have at least a partial solution, all have seen exciting breakthroughs in recent years, yet many of the explanations continue to be hotly debated.
Big Questions in Ecology and Evolution is a curiosity-driven book, written in an accessible way so as to appeal to a broad audience. It is very deliberately not a formal text book, but something designed to transmit the excitement and breadth of the field by discussing a number of major questions in ecology and evolution and how they have been answered. This is a book aimed at informing and inspiring anybody with an interest in ecology and evolution. It reveals to the reader the immense scope of the field, its fundamental importance, and the exciting breakthroughs that have been made in recent years.

Temperature profoundly impacts both the phenotypes and distributions of organisms. These thermal effects exert strong selective pressures on behaviour, physiology and life history when environmental temperatures vary over space and time. Despite temperature's significance, progress toward a quantitative theory of thermal adaptation has lagged behind empirical descriptions of patterns and processes. In this book, the author draws on theory from the more general discipline of evolutionary ecology to establish a framework for interpreting empirical studies of thermal biology. This novel synthesis of theoretical and empirical work generates new insights about the process of thermal adaptation and points the way towards a more general theory. The threat of rapid climatic change on a global scale provides a stark reminder of the challenges that remain for thermal biologists and adds a sense of urgency to this book's mission.
Thermal Adaptation will benefit anyone who seeks to understand the relationship between environmental variation and phenotypic evolution. The book focuses on quantitative evolutionary models at the individual, population and community levels, and successfully integrates this theory with modern empirical approaches. By providing a synthetic overview of evolutionary thermal biology, this accessible text will appeal to both graduate students and established researchers in the fields of comparative, ecological, and evolutionary physiology. It will also interest the broader audience of professional ecologists and evolutionary biologists who require a comprehensive review of this topic, as well as those researchers working on the applied problems of regional and global climate change.

From the cells of aquatic algae to the majestic redwoods towering 100 metres above the California coast, the history of plant evolution has been one of increasing complexity. The underlying rationale for this book is to answer the question: How, when land plant embryos at a few-celled stage are essentially comparable, do plants achieve such radically different adult phenotypes, from mosses to tree-ferns, and grasses to oak trees?
The Molecular Organography of Plants chronicles the origin, and importance, of the complex plant organs that have allowed plants to shape the earth's biosphere, and seeks to explain why and how the genetic mechanisms governing these developmental trajectories have diverged so much. It provides a detailed account of the organs produced by land plants (stems, roots, leaves, seeds, flowers) into which is incorporated what is rapidly becoming known of the molecular mechanisms responsible. Plant organs are therefore discussed in the context of the evolution of development ("evo-devo"), and their basis in molecular developmental genetics is described. The result is a novel synthesis of classical morphology and molecular developmental biology that takes a broad look at the evolution of plant form.

Animal phylogeny is undergoing a major revolution due to the availability of an exponentially increasing amount of molecular data and the application of novel methods of phylogentic reconstruction, as well as the many spectacular advances in palaeontology and molecular developmental biology. Traditional views of the relationships among major phyla have been shaken and new, often unexpected, relationships are now being considered. At the same tiem, the emerging discipline of evolutionary developmental biology, or 'evo-devo', has offered new insights into the origin and evolvability of major traits of animal architecture and life cycle. All these developments call for a revised interpretation of the pathways along which animal structure and development has evolved since the origin of the Metazoa.
Perspectives in Animal Phylogeny and Evolution takes on this challenge, successfully integrating morphological, fossil and molecular evidence to produce a novel reinterpretation of animal evolution. Central to the book's approach is an 'evo-devo' perspective on animal evolution (with all the fresh insights this has given into the origin of animal organization and life cycles), complementary to the more traditional perspectives of pattern (cladistics, comparative anatomy and embryology), mechanisms (developmental biology) and adaptation (evolutionary biology). The author advocates the need to approach the study of animal evolution with a critical attitude towards many key concepts of comparative morphology and developmental biology. Particular attention in the book is paid to the evolution of life cycles and larval forms.
This accessible text is suitable for graduate students takingadvanced courses in evolutionary developmental biology, invertebrate zoology, molecular phylogenetics and palaeontology, as well as professional researchers in these fields requiring an authoritative and up-to-date overview of this dynamic topic.

Market: Those in economics, especially thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, cybernetics, information theory, resource use, and evolutionary economic behavior. This book presents an innovative and challenging look at evolution on several scales, from the earth and its geology and chemistry to living organisms to social and economic systems. Applying the principles of thermodynamics and the concepts of information gathering and self- organization, the author characterizes the direction of evolution in each case as an accumulation of "distinguishability" information--a type of universal knowledge.

Communication is essential for all forms of social interaction, from parental care to mate choice and cooperation. This is evident for human societies but less obvious for bacterial biofilms, ant colonies or flocks of birds. The major disciplines of communication research have tried to identify common core principles, but syntheses have been few because historical barriers have limited interaction between different research fields.
Sociobiology of Communication is a timely and novel synthesis. It bridges many of the gaps between proximate and ultimate levels of analysis, between empirical model systems, and between biology and the humanities. The book offers the complementary approaches of a distinguished group of authors spanning a large diversity of research programs, addressing, for example, the genetic basis of bacterial communication, dishonest communication in insect societies, sexual selection and network communication among colonial vertebrates. Other chapters explore the role of communication in genomic conflict and self-organisation, and how linguistics, psychology and philosophy may ultimately contribute to a biological understanding of human mate choice and the evolution of human societies.
This highly interdisciplinary book highlights key examples of modern research to explore the genetic, neurobiological, physiological, chemical and behavioural basis of social communication. It identifies where consensus on the general principles is emerging and where the major future challenges are to be found. The book is therefore suitable for both for graduate students and professionals in evolutionary biology and behavioural ecology seeking novel inspiration, and for a wideracademic audience, including social and medical scientists who would like to explore what evolutionary approaches can offer to their fields.

'Brilliant, eye-opening, and absolutely inspiring - and a riveting read.' Cass Sunstein, author of How Change Happens and co-author of Nudge What is the secret to humanity's evolutionary success? Could it be our strength, our intellect... or something much nicer? From the authors of New York Times bestseller The Genius of Dogs comes a powerful new idea about how 'friendliness' is the key factor in the flourishing of our species. Hare and Woods present an elegant new theory called self-domestication, looking at examples of co-operation and empathy and what this can tell us about the evolutionary success of Homo sapiens...

This book, published in two volumes, provides the most comprehensive review of lamprey biology since Hardisty and Potter's "The Biology of Lampreys" published more than 30 years ago. This second volume offers a synthesis of topics related to the lamprey gonad (e.g., lamprey sex ratios, sex determination and sex differentiation, sexual maturation, and sex steroids), the artifical propagation of lampreys, post-metamorphic feeding and the evolution of alternative feeding and migratory types, the history and status of sea lamprey control in the Laurentian Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, and an overview of contributions of lamprey developmental studies for understanding vertebrate evolution.

This book takes a fresh look at the work, thoughts, and life of 1956 Nobel Prize winner William B. Shockley. It reconstructs Shockley's upbringing, his patriotic achievements during World War II, his contribution to semiconductor physics - culminating with the epoch-making invention of the transistor - and his views on the social issues of his time. The author's unparalleled access to Shockley's personal documents provides insight into a colorful, yet controversial, man, and also sheds light on the attitudes of other prominent scientists of that era. Shockley was not only an outstanding scientist in his own right but also a fiercely independent thinker in perpetual search of the truth. His contributions to the field known today as microelectronics are enormous and unmatched. This book explores the critical facets of Shockley's life, replete with never-before-published photos and excerpts from his private correspondence and personal notebooks. The book also delves into Shockley's views on genetics and human intelligence. It tells the story of a man beset by an unrelenting rationality, slandered by the popular media, and ultimately alienated by his peers. It discusses his controversial, although sometimes prescient, ideas regarding human genetics, putting these into the context of modern research findings. Today, William Shockley is perhaps just as enigmatic as his work and accomplishments. The author presents a convincing argument that Shockley still has much to say about the issues of our age, and many of his ideas deserve evaluation in the public forum.

This book adopts an experimental approach to understanding the mechanisms of evolution and the nature of evolutionary processes, with examples drawn from microbial, plant and animal systems. It incorporates insights from remarkable recent advances in theoretical modeling, and the fields of molecular genetics and environmental genomics.
Adaptation is caused by selection continually winnowing the genetic variation created by mutation. In the last decade, our knowledge of how selection operates on populations in the field and in the laboratory has increased enormously, and the principal aim of this book is to provide an up-to-date account of selection as the principal agent of evolution. In the classical Fisherian model, weak selection acting on many genes of small effect over long periods of time is responsible for driving slow and gradual change. However, it is now clear that adaptation in laboratory populations often involves strong selection acting on a few genes of large effect, while in the wild selection is often strong and highly variable in space and time. Indeed these results are changing our perception of how evolutionary change takes place. This book summarizes our current understanding of the causes and consequences of selection, with an emphasis on quantitative and experimental studies. It includes the latest research into experimental evolution, natural selection in the wild, artificial selection, selfish genetic elements, selection in social contexts, sexual selection, and speciation.
Selection: The Mechanism of Evolution is an advanced textbook suitable for senior undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in evolutionary biology, ecology, populationgenetics, and experimental evolution. It will also be a valuable reference tool for those professional researchers in these fields requiring an authoritative and up-to-date overview of the topic, as well as providing an accessible treatment of evolutionary mechanisms for molecular and cellular biologists.

For most of us, the story of mammal evolution starts after the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs, but over the last 20 years scientists have uncovered remarkable fossils and new technologies that have upended this story. In Beasts Before Us, palaeontologist Elsa Panciroli charts the emergence of the mammal lineage, the Synapsida, beginning with their murky split from the reptiles in the Carboniferous period, more than three-hundred million years ago; these animals made the world theirs long before the rise of dinosaurs. Travelling forward into the Permian and then Triassic periods, we learn how our ancient mammal ancestors evolved from large, hairy beasts with fast metabolisms to exploit miniaturisation, the key to unlocking the traits that define mammals as we now know them. Elsa criss-crosses the globe to explore the sites where discoveries are being made and to meet the people who make them. In Scotland, she traverses the desert dunes of prehistoric Moray, where quarry workers unearthed the footprints of Permian synapsids; in South Africa, she introduces us to animals that gave scientists the first hints that our furry kin evolved from a lineage of egg-laying burrowers; and in China, new and astounding fossil finds reveal a suite of ancient mammals including gliders, shovel-pawed moles, and flat-tailed swimmers. This brilliantly written book radically reframes the narrative of our mammalian ancestors, providing a counterpoint to the stereotype of cowering Mesozoic mammals hiding away from their mighty dinosaur overlords. The earliest mammals weren't just precursors - they were pioneers.

How universal are our moral obligations? Should we attempt to communicate with life beyond our planet? What is "life"? Social and Conceptual Issues in Astrobiology explores the most important questions related to the field of astrobiology, and the resulting book is the most comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach focused on the humanistic issues of the multidisciplinary science of astrobiology to date. Questions surrounding life on other planets have troubled humankind for centuries; this volume outlines the questions for the next decade of research in the field of astrobiology. Kelly C. Smith and Carlos Mariscal have assembled the top scholars from fields spanning history, communication, philosophy, law, and theology to consider the implications of life elsewhere. The perspectives supplied by this expansive group of contributors have never before been collected in book a book focused on astrobiology. This book sets a benchmark for future work in astrobiology, giving readers the groundwork from which to base the continuous scholarship coming from this ever-growing scientific field.

Understanding of animal social and sexual evolution has seen a renaissance in recent years with discoveries of frequent infidelity in apparently monogamous species, the importance of sperm competition, active female mate choice, and eusocial behavior in animals outside the traditional social insect groups. Each of these findings has raised new questions, and suggested new answers, about the evolution of behavioral interactions among animals. This volume synthesizes recent research on the sexual and social biology of the Crustacea, one of the dominant invertebrate groups on earth. Its staggering diversity includes ecologically important inhabitants of nearly every environment from deep-sea trenches, through headwater streams, to desert soils. The wide range of crustacean phenotypes and environments is accompanied by a comparable diversity of behavioral and social systems, including the elaborate courtship and wildly exaggerated morphologies of fiddler crabs, the mysterious queuing behavior of migrating spiny lobsters, and even eusociality in coral-reef shrimps. This diversity makes crustaceans particularly valuable for exploring the comparative evolution of sexual and social systems. Despite exciting recent advances, however, general recognition of the value of Crustacea as models has lagged behind that of the better studied insects and vertebrates. This book synthesizes the state of the field in crustacean behavior and sociobiology and places it in a conceptually based, comparative framework that will be valuable to active researchers and students in animal behavior, ecology, and evolutionary biology. It brings together a group of internationally recognized and rising experts in fields related to crustacean behavioral ecology, ranging from physiology and functional morphology, through mating and social behavior, to ecology and phylogeny. Each chapter makes connections to other, non-crustacean taxa, and the volume closes with a summary section that synthesizes the contributions, discusses anthropogenic impacts, highlights unanswered questions, and provides a vision for profitable future research.

For undergraduate courses in Evolution By presenting evolutionary biology as a dynamic, ongoing research effort and organizing discussions around questions, this best-selling text helps students think like scientists as they learn about evolution. The authors convey the excitement and logic of evolutionary science by introducing principles through recent and classical studies, and by emphasizing real-world applications. In the Fifth Edition, co-author Jon Herron takes the lead in streamlining and updating content to reflect key changes in the field. The design and art program have also been updated for enhanced clarity.

Systematics has developed rapidly during the past two decades. A multitude of new methods and contributions from a diversity of biological fields including molecular genetics and developmental biology have provided a wealth of phylogenetic hypotheses, some confirming traditional views others contradicting them. Despite such inconsistencies, it is now possible to recognize robust regions of a 'tree of life' and also to identify problematic areas which have yet to be resolved. This is the first book to apply the current state of phylogeny to an evolutionary interpretation of animal organ systems and body architecture, providing alternative theories in those cases of continuing controversy.
Organs do not appear suddenly during evolution; instead they are composed of far simpler structures. In some cases it is even possible to trace particular molecules or physiological pathways as far back as pre-animal history. What emerges is a fascinating picture, showing how animals have combined ancestral and new elements in novel ways to form constantly changing responses to environmental requirements.
The Evolution of Organ Systems starts with a general overview of current animal phylogeny, followed by review of general body organization including symmetry, anteroposterior axis, dorsoventral axis, germ layers, segmentation, and skeletons. Subsequent chapters then provide a detailed description of the individual organ systems themselves - integument, musculature, nervous system, sensory organs, body cavities, excretory system, circulatory system, respiratory system, intestinal system, gonads and gametes. Generously illustrated throughout, this accessible text is suitable for both upper levelundergraduate and graduate students taking courses in animal evolution, organogenesis, animal anatomy, zoology and systematics. It will also be a valuable reference tool for those professional researchers in these fields requiring an authoritative, balanced and up-to-date overview of the topic.

Kinship ties-the close relationships found within the family-have been a central focus of evolutionary biological analyses of social behavior ever since biologist William Hamilton extended the concept of Darwinian fitness to include an individual's actions benefiting not only his own offspring, but also collateral kin. Evolutionary biologists consider organisms not only reproductive strategists, but also nepotistic strategists. If a person's genes are just as likely to be reproduced in her sister as in her daughter, then we should expect the evolution of sororal investment in the same way as one expects maternal investment. This concept has revolutionized biologists' understanding of social interaction and developmental psychologists' understanding of the family. However, kinship ties have largely been ignored in other areas of psychology, particularly social psychology.
Family Relationships brings together leading theorists and researchers from evolutionary psychology and related disciplines to illustrate the ways in which an evolutionary perspective can inform our study and understanding of family relationships. The contributors argue that family psychology is relationship specific: the relationship between mother and daughter is different from that between father and daughter or that between brother and sister or sister and sister. In other words, humans have evolved specialized mechanisms for processing information and motivating behavior that deal with the distinct demands of being a mate, father, mother, sibling, child, or grandparent. Such an evolutionary perspective on family dynamics provides a unique insight into human behavior.
This volume will be an indispensableresource for psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists, as well scholars of family, marriage, and animal behavior.

The study of the genetic basis for evolution has flourished in this century, as well as our understanding of the evolvability and programmability of biological systems. Genetic algorithms meanwhile grew out of the realization that a computer program could use the biologically-inspired processes of mutation, recombination, and selection to solve hard optimization problems. Genetic and evolutionary programming provide further approaches to a wide variety of computational problems. A synthesis of these experiences reveals fundamental insights into both the computational nature of biological evolution and processes of importance to computer science. Topics include biological models of nucleic acid information processing and genome evolution; molecules, cells, and metabolic circuits that compute logical relationships; the origin and evolution of the genetic code; and the interface with genetic algorithms and genetic and evolutionary programming.

This book addresses multiple aspects of biological clocks in prokaryotes. The first part of the book deals with the circadian clock system in cyanobacteria, i.e. the pioneer of bacterial clocks. Starting with the history and background of cyanobacteria and circadian rhythms in microorganisms, the topics range from the molecular basis, structure and evolution of the circadian clock to modelling approaches, Kai systems in cyanobacteria and biotechnological applications. In the second part, emergent timekeeping properties of bacteria in microbiomes and bacteria other than cyanobacteria are discussed. Since the discovery of circadian rhythms in cyanobacteria in the late 1980s, the field has exploded with new information. The cyanobacterial model system for studying circadian rhythms (Synechococcus elongatus), has allowed a detailed genetic dissection of the bacterial clock due to state-of-the-art methods in molecular, structural, and evolutionary biology. Cutting-edge research spanning from cyanobacteria and circadian phenomena in other kinds of bacteria, to microbiomes has now given the field another major boost. This book is aimed at junior and senior researchers alike. Students or researchers new to the field of biological clocks in prokaryotes will get a comprehensive overview, while more experienced researchers will get an update on the latest developments.

The broad arc of islands north of Australia that extends from Indonesia east towards the central Pacific is home to a set of human populations whose concentration of diversity is unequaled elsewhere. Approximately 20% of the worlds languages are spoken here, and the biological and genetic heterogeneity among the groups is extraordinary. Anthropologist W.W. Howells once declared diversity in the region so Protean as to defy analysis. However, this book can now claim considerable success in describing and understanding the origins of the genetic and linguistic variation there. In order to cut through this biological knot, the authors have applied a comprehensive battery of genetic analyses to an intensively sampled set of populations, and have subjected these and complementary linguistic data to a variety of phylogenetic analyses. This has revealed a number of heretofore unknown ancient Pleistocene genetic variants that are only found in these island populations, and has also identified the genetic footprints of more recent migrants from Southeast Asia who were the ancestors of the Polynesians. The book lays out the very complex structure of the variation within and among the islands in this relatively small region, and a number of explanatory models are tested to see which best account for the observed pattern of genetic variation here. The results suggest that a number of commonly used models of evolutionary divergence are overly simple in their assumptions, and that often human diversity has accumulated in very complex ways.

Ancestral sequence reconstruction is a technique of growing importance in molecular evolutionary biology and comparative genomics. As a powerful tool for testing evolutionary and ecological hypotheses, as well as uncovering the link between sequence and molecular phenotype, there are potential applications in a range of fields. Ancestral Sequence Reconstruction starts with a historical overview of the field, before discussing the potential applications in drug discovery and the pharmaceutical industry. This is followed by a section on computational methodology, which provides a detailed discussion of the available methods for reconstructing ancestral sequences (including their advantages, disadvantages, and potential pitfalls). Purely computational applications of the technique are then covered, including whole proteome reconstruction. Further chapters provide a detailed discussion on taking computationally reconstructed sequences and synthesizing them in the laboratory. The book concludes with a description of the scientific questions where experimental ancestral sequence reconstruction has been utilized to provide insights and inform future research. This research level text provides a first synthesis of the theories, methodologies and applications associated with ancestral sequence recognition, while simultaneously addressing many of the hot topics in the field. It will be of interest and use to both graduate students and researchers in the fields of molecular biology, molecular evolution, and evolutionary bioinformatics.