Arthropod Vector: Controller of Disease Transmission, Volume 1: Vector Microbiome and Innate Immunity of Arthropods is built on topics initially raised at a related Keystone Symposium on Arthropod Vectors. Together with the separate, related Volume 2: Vector Saliva-Host Pathogen Interactions, this work presents a logical sequence of topic development that leads to regulatory considerations for advancing these and related concepts for developing novel control measures. The three themes of symbionts, vector immune defenses and arthropod saliva modulation of the host environment are central to the concept of determinants of vector competence that involves all aspects of vector-borne pathogen development within the arthropod that culminates in the successful transmission to the vertebrate host. These three areas are characterized at the present time by rapid achievement of significant, incremental insights, which advances our understanding for a wide variety of arthropod vector species, and this work is the first to extensively integrate these themes.

This book presents 20 selected contributions to the 18th Evolutionary Biology Meeting, which took place in September 2014 in Marseille. They are grouped under the following major themes: * Genotype to Phenotype * Genetic Mechanisms of Diversification * Evolutionary Mechanisms * Speciation and Biodiversity The aims of these annual meetings in Marseille are to bring together leading evolutionary biologists and other scientists who employ evolutionary biology concepts, e.g. for medical research, and to promote the exchange of ideas and encourage interdisciplinary collaborations. Offering an up-to-date overview of recent advances in the field of evolutionary biology, this book represents an invaluable source of information for scientists, teachers and advanced students.

When and how did the brains of our hominin ancestors become human minds? When and why did our capacity for language or art, music and dance evolve? It is the contention of this pathbreaking and provocative book that it was the need for early humans to live in ever-larger social groups, and to maintain social relations over ever-greater distances - the ability to `think big' - that drove the enlargement of the human brain and the development of the human mind. This `social brain hypothesis', put forward by evolutionary psychologists such as Robin Dunbar, one of the authors of this book, can be tested against archaeological and fossil evidence, as archaeologists Clive Gamble and John Gowlett show in the second part of Thinking Big. Along the way, the three authors touch on subjects as diverse and diverting as the switch from finger-tip grooming to vocal grooming or the crucial importance of making fire for the lengthening of the social day. As this remarkable book shows, it seems we still inhabit social worlds that originated deep in our evolutionary past - by the fireside, in the hunt and on the grasslands of Africa.

One of the world's leading experts on horse evolution traces the origins, evolution, and diversification of the equines.

Long domesticated, related to rhinoceroses, and descended from a creature the size of a hare, horses are a fascinating study in evolution. Jens Franzen's account explores the early evolution and eventual diversification of horse anatomy to explain how and why these once widespread and varied mammals became the common horses, zebras, and asses we know today. Beginning with their evolutionary rise roughly 55 million years ago, Franzen traces a history etched in fossils. He explains how improving body construction and energy balance allowed some horses to enter and thrive in new environments while others failed and became extinct. In presenting this story, Franzen hews closely to the Frankfurt theory of evolution and explains how it applies to the wide variations in the evolution of horse species.

Accessibly written and featuring full-color photographs and illustrations throughout, "The Rise of Horses" is the complete chronicle of the evolution of the equids.

Mixed-Species Groups of Animals: Behavior, Community Structure, and Conservation presents a comprehensive discussion on the mixed-species groups of animals, a spectacular and accessible example of the complexity of species interactions. They are found in a wide range of animals, including invertebrates, fish, mammals and birds, and in different habitats, both terrestrial and aquatic, throughout the world. While there are more than 500 articles on this subject scattered in separate categories of journals, there has yet to be a general, cross-taxa book-length introduction to this subject that summarizes the behavior and community structure of these groups. The authors first survey the diversity of spatial associations among animals and then concentrate on moving groups. They review the major classes of theories that have been developed to explain their presence, particularly in how groups increase foraging efficiency and decrease predation. Finally, they explore the intricacies of species interactions, such as communication, that explain species roles in groups and discuss what implications these social systems have for conservation.

Arthropod Vector: Controller of Disease Transmission, Volume 2: Vector Saliva-Host Pathogen Interactions is built on topics initially raised at a related Keystone Symposium on Arthropod Vectors. Together with the separate, related Volume 1: Controller of Disease Transmission, this work presents a logical sequence of topic development that leads to regulatory considerations for advancing these and related concepts for developing novel control measures. The three themes of symbionts, vector immune defenses and arthropod saliva modulation of the host environment are central to the concept of determinants of vector competence that involves all aspects of vector-borne pathogen development within the arthropod that culminates in the successful transmission to the vertebrate host. These three areas are characterized at the present time by rapid achievement of significant, incremental insights, which advances our understanding for a wide variety of arthropod vector species, and this work is the first to extensively integrate these themes.

The relations between behavior, evolution, and culture have been a subject of vigorous debate since the publication of Darwin's The Descent of Man (1871). The latest volume of Perspectives in Ethology brings anthropologists, ethologists, psychologists, and evolutionary theorists together to reexamine this important relation. With two exceptions (the essays by Brown and Eldredge), all of the present essays were originally presented at the Fifth Biannual Symposium on the Science of Behavior held in Guadalajara, Mexico, in February 1998. The volume opens with the problem of the origins of culture, tackled from two different viewpoints by Richerson and Boyd, and Lancaster, Kaplan, Hill, and Hurtado, respectively. Richerson and Boyd analyze the possible relations between climatic change in the Pleistocene and the evo lution of social learning, evaluating the boundary conditions under which social learning could increase fitness and contribute to culture. Lancaster, Kaplan, Hill, and Hurtado examine how a shift in the diet of the genus Homo toward difficult-to-acquire food could have determined (or coe volved with) unique features of the human life cycle. These two essays illus trate how techniques that range from computer modeling to comparative behavioral analysis, and that make use of a wide range of data, can be used for drawing inferences about past selection pressures. As culture evolves, it must somehow find its place within (and also affect) a complex hierarchy of behavioral and biological factors."

This book presents an evolutionary biogeographic analysis of the Mexican Transition Zone, which is situated in the overlap of the Nearctic and Neotropical regions. It includes a comprehensive review of previous track, cladistic and molecular biogeographic analyses and is illustrated with full color maps and vegetation photographs of the respective areas covered. Given its scope, the book will be of interest to students and researchers whose work involves systematic and biogeographic analyses of plant and animal taxa of the Mexican Transition Zone or other transition zones of the world, and to ecologists working in biodiversity conservation, who will be able to appreciate the evolutionary relevance of the Mexican Transition Zone for establishing conservation areas..

Conceptual Breakthroughs in Ethology and Animal Behavior highlights, through concise summaries, the most important discoveries and scientific revolutions in animal behavior. These are assessed for their relative impact on the field and their significance to the forward motion of the science of animal behavior. Eighty short essays capture the moment when a new concept emerged or a publication signaled a paradigm shift. How the new understanding came about is explained, and any continuing controversy or scientific conversation on the issue is highlighted. Behavior is a rich and varied field, drawing on genetics, evolution, physiology, and ecology to inform its principles, and this book embraces the wealth of knowledge that comes from the unification of these fields around the study of animals in motion. The chronological organization of the essays makes this an excellent overview of the history of animal behavior, ethology, and behavioral ecology. The work includes such topics as Darwin's role in shaping the study of animal behavior, the logic of animal contests, cognition, empathy in animals, and animal personalities. Succinct accounts of new revelations about behavior through scientific investigation and scrutiny reveal the fascinating story of this field. Similar to Dr. John Avise's Contemporary Breakthroughs in Evolutionary Genetics, the work is structured into vignettes that describe the conceptual revolution and assess the impact of the conceptual change, with a score, which ranges from 1-10, providing an assessment of the impact of the new findings on contemporary science.

This amusing, acerbic collection of essays examines every facet of the evolution/creationism controversy. Delos B. McKown exposes the ambiguous standing of "creation science" in public education, its roots in American fundamentalism, its incompatibility with scientific inquiry, and the clever rhetorical ploys "scientific creationists" use to cover their tracks. Although the "scientific creationists" try to impose a pure myth upon our public schools in the guise of respectable science, theirs is a curious kind of reasoning having ominous consequences for any society hoping to ground its educational system on modern scientific knowledge and methodology and on open, free investigation of problems and issues. McKown takes the "scientific creationists" world view seriously. In those instances where they would like to escape a literal reading of the Bible and slip into parable or allegory to avoid embarrassment, he makes them take their scriptures straight. Moreover, McKown puts them to rout with a perfectly biblical bit of theology that he calls "Three-World Creationism". The Mythmaker's Magic puts "scientific creationism" into its proper historical perspective, shows what its legal and constitutional strengths are, and suggests what may be done to thwart, if not to destroy, its malignant influence in public education. For all those who want to actively combat the dangerous spread of "scientific creationism" in public education, this powerful book can serve as both a beacon and a guide.

The discoveries of the last decade have brought about a completely revised understanding of human evolution, due to the recent advances in genetics, palaeontology, ecology, archaeology, geography, and climate science. Written by two leading authorities in the fields of physical anthropology and molecular evolution, Processes in Human Evolution presents a reconsidered overview of hominid evolution, synthesising data and approaches from a range of inter-disciplinary fields. The authors pay particular attention to population migrations, since these are crucial in understanding the origin and dispersion of the different genera and species in each continent, and to the emergence of the lithic cultures and their impact on the evolution of the cognitive capacities. Processes in Human Evolution is intended as a primary textbook for university courses on human evolution, and may also be used as supplementary reading in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses. It is also suitable for interested lay-readers seeking a readable but up-to-date and inclusive treatment of human origins and evolution.

Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection challenges our very sense of belonging in the world. Unlike prior evolutionary theories, Darwinism construes species as mutable historical products of a blind process that serves no inherent purpose. It also represents a distinctly modern kind of fallible science that relies on statistical evidence and is not verifiable by simple laboratory experiments. What are human purpose and knowledge if humanity has no pre-given essence and science itself is our finite and fallible product? According to the Received Image of Darwinism, Darwin's theory signals the triumph of mechanism and reductionism in all science. On this view, the individual virtually disappears at the intersection of (internal) genes and (external) environment. In contrast, William James creatively employs Darwinian concepts to support his core conviction that both knowledge and reality are in the making, with individuals as active participants. In promoting this Pragmatic Image of Darwinism, McGranahan provides a novel reading of James as a philosopher of self-transformation. Like his contemporary Nietzsche, James is concerned first and foremost with the structure and dynamics of the finite purposive individual. This timely volume is suitable for advanced undergraduate, postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers interested in the fields of history of philosophy, history and philosophy of science, history of psychology, American pragmatism and Darwinism.

Chordate Origins and Evolution: The Molecular Evolutionary Road to Vertebrates focuses on echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins, and others), hemichordates (acorn worms, etc.), cephalochordates (lancelets), urochordates or tunicates (ascidians, larvaceans and others), and vertebrates. In general, evolution of these groups is discussed independently, on a larger scale: ambulacrarians (echi+hemi) and chordates (cephlo+uro+vert). Until now, discussion of these topics has been somewhat fragmented, and this work provides a unified presentation of the essential information. In the more than 150 years since Charles Darwin proposed the concept of the origin of species by means of natural selection, which has profoundly affected all fields of biology and medicine, the evolution of animals (metazoans) has been studied, discussed, and debated extensively. Following many decades of classical comparative morphology and embryology, the 1980s marked a turning point in studies of animal evolution, when molecular biological approaches, including molecular phylogeny (MP), molecular evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo), and comparative genomics (CG), began to be employed. There are at least five key events in metazoan evolution, which include the origins of 1) diploblastic animals, such as cnidarians; 2) triploblastic animals or bilaterians; 3) protostomes and deuterostomes; 4) chordates, among deuterostomes; and 5) vertebrates, among chordates. The last two have received special attention in relation to evolution of human beings. During the past two decades, great advances have been made in this field, especially in regard to molecular and developmental mechanisms involved in the evolution of chordates. For example, the interpretation of phylogenetic relationships among deuterostomes has drastically changed. In addition, we have now obtained a large quantity of MP, evo-devo, and CG information on the origin and evolution of chordates.

In this work aggression and conflict in man and other primates are interpreted in the light of evolutionary biology and game theory models.Unitlnow interdisciplinary collaboration between the humanities and the natural sciences has been rare and hampered by different methodologies and terminology. Nevertheless, such cooperation is essential for elucidating the causes and consequences of aggression in humans and in explaining what shape aggression takes in particular situations. The aim of this volume is to present empirical and theoretical studies from biologists and social scientists to create an interdisciplinary framework for understanding aggression.

"Riveting. ... Pattison's uncanny ability [is] to write evocatively about science. ... In this, he is every bit as good as the best scientist writers." -New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) "Brilliant. ... A work of staggering depth." -Minneapolis Star Tribune A decade in the making, Fossil Men is a scientific detective story played out in anatomy and the natural history of the human body: the first full-length account of the discovery of a startlingly unpredicted human ancestor more than a million years older than Lucy It is the ultimate mystery: where do we come from? In 1994, a team led by fossil-hunting legend Tim White uncovered a set of ancient bones in Ethiopia's Afar region. Radiometric dating of nearby rocks indicated the resulting skeleton, classified as Ardipithecus ramidus-nicknamed "Ardi"-was an astounding 4.4 million years old, more than a million years older than the world-famous "Lucy." The team spent the next 15 years studying the bones in strict secrecy, all while continuing to rack up landmark fossil discoveries in the field and becoming increasingly ensnared in bitter disputes with scientific peers and Ethiopian bureaucrats. When finally revealed to the public, Ardi stunned scientists around the world and challenged a half-century of orthodoxy about human evolution-how we started walking upright, how we evolved our nimble hands, and, most significantly, whether we were descended from an ancestor that resembled today's chimpanzee. But the discovery of Ardi wasn't just a leap forward in understanding the roots of humanity--it was an attack on scientific convention and the leading authorities of human origins, triggering an epic feud about the oldest family skeleton. In Fossil Men, acclaimed journalist Kermit Pattison brings us a cast of eccentric, obsessive scientists, including White, an uncompromising perfectionist whose virtuoso skills in the field were matched only by his propensity for making enemies; Gen Suwa, a Japanese savant whose deep expertise about teeth rivaled anyone on Earth; Owen Lovejoy, a onetime creationist-turned-paleoanthropologist with radical insights into human locomotion; Berhane Asfaw, who survived imprisonment and torture to become Ethiopia's most senior paleoanthropologist; Don Johanson, the discoverer of Lucy, who had a rancorous falling out with the Ardi team; and the Leakeys, for decades the most famous family in paleoanthropology. Based on a half-decade of research in Africa, Europe and North America, Fossil Men is not only a brilliant investigation into the origins of the human lineage, but the oldest of human emotions: curiosity, jealousy, perseverance and wonder.

In this study Dr. Gregory examines how Diderot borrowed from Lucretius, Buffon, Maupertuis, and probability theory, and combined ideas from these sources in an innovative fashion to hypothesize that species are mutable and that all life arose randomly from a single prototype.

In focusing on the story of Darwin's religious doubts, scholars too often overlook Darwin's positive contribution to the study of religion. J. David Pleins traces Darwin's journey in five steps. He begins with Darwin's global voyage, where his encounter with religious and cultural diversity transformed his understanding of religion. Surprisingly, Darwin wrestles with serious theological questions even as he uncovers the evolutionary layers of religion from savage roots. Next, we follow Darwin as his doubts about traditional biblical religion take root, affecting his career choice and marriage to Emma Wedgwood. Pleins then examines Darwin's secret notebooks as he searches for a materialist theory of religion. Again, other surprises loom as Darwin's reading of Comte's three stages of religion's development actually predate his reading of Malthus. Pleins explores how Darwin applied his discovery to the realm of ethics by formulating an evolutionary view of the "Golden Rule" in his "Descent of Man." Finally, he considers Darwin's later reflections on the religion question, as he wrestled with whether his views led to atheism, agnosticism, or a new kind of theism. "The Evolving God" concludes by looking at some of the current religious debates surrounding Darwin and suggests the need for a deeper appreciation for Darwin as a religious thinker. Though he grew skeptical of traditional Christian dogma, Darwin made key discoveries concerning the role and function of religion as a natural evolutionary phenomenon.

Originally published in 1974, this volume is primarily devoted to what is known about human infancy from an ethological, evolutionary viewpoint. Included are discussions of pan-specific traits, presumably shared by all infants; individual genetic variations on these behaviours (as judged by twin-studies); sex differences, presumably shared by infants of all ethnic groups; and genetically based ethnic differences. However, the author favours neither biological determinism nor cultural determinism, and does not consider 'interactionism' to be a viable solution. Instead, a monistic position is taken, stressing the inseparability of the innate and the acquired, of genetics and environment, and of biology and culture. The heredity-environment issue is tackled head-on throughout the volume. The interaction between the two (an implied dualism) is described as a statistical abstraction from measured populations, while the position here is that heredity and environment are not separable in any single organism. In the same vein, the author argues that on logical grounds everything one does, every 'cultural' act, has within it some biological component.

Volume 1 of the series "Fundamentals of Medical Cell Biology" is devoted to evolutionary biology. This is presented in two parts: in the first, the structure and dynamics of RNA, DNA, and protein are dealt with. The second part is concerned with the origins and cellular basis of life.

'This is a wonderful, mind-expanding book. Prepare to be surprised, enlightened and awed as Wagner reveals the sources of human and natural creativity.' - Alice Roberts In Darwin's survival of the fittest, each step must be uphill as life progresses towards an evolutionary peak. There is no turning back. So what happens when life needs to cross a valley in the wilds of an adaptive landscape to reach the highest summit? World-renowned biologist Andreas Wagner reveals that life does not only walk - it also leaps. Drawing on pioneering research, Wagner explores life's creative process and how it bears a striking resemblance to how we humans work. A beguiling symmetry links Picasso struggling through forty versions of Guernica and the way evolution transformed a dinosaur's claw into a condor's wing. This new understanding is already revolutionising our approach to problem-solving across the sciences. In the near future, applied in spheres as diverse as the economy and education, it will enable us to do so much more. Life Finds a Way is a thought-provoking and deeply hopeful look at the force that shapes our world.

This book presents the result of an innovative challenge, to create a systematic literature overview driven by machine-generated content. Questions and related keywords were prepared for the machine to query, discover, collate and structure by Artificial Intelligence (AI) clustering. The AI-based approach seemed especially suitable to provide an innovative perspective as the topics are indeed both complex, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, for example, climate, planetary and evolution sciences. Springer Nature has published much on these topics in its journals over the years, so the challenge was for the machine to identify the most relevant content and present it in a structured way that the reader would find useful. The automatically generated literature summaries in this book are intended as a springboard to further discoverability. They are particularly useful to readers with limited time, looking to learn more about the subject quickly and especially if they are new to the topics. Springer Nature seeks to support anyone who needs a fast and effective start in their content discovery journey, from the undergraduate student exploring interdisciplinary content, to Master- or PhD-thesis developing research questions, to the practitioner seeking support materials, this book can serve as an inspiration, to name a few examples. It is important to us as a publisher to make the advances in technology easily accessible to our authors and find new ways of AI-based author services that allow human-machine interaction to generate readable, usable, collated, research content.

Every day, people make life choices that, ideally, increase their evolutionary fitness - the chances of survival and successful reproduction - and lead to positive feelings of fulfilment, accomplishment, and happiness. Sometimes, however, individuals experience quite the opposite: feelings of sadness caused by fitness-decreasing choices. Fortunately, many advancements in evolutionary theory and evolutionary psychology have increased humans' capacity as a species to address the question of how to live a life characterized by more positive than negative feelings. Feeling Good reveals anyone can learn how to trigger mechanisms that generate positive feelings and increase positive fitness levels. The key is to employ an evolutionary perspective on how mental mechanisms generate feelings in relation to our life choices. From an insightfully evolutionary perspective, Feeling Good examines how to find and keep a mate, make good career decisions, build a solid social network, deal with death and negative influences, and make life choices in general that can lead to better and more sustainable mental and physical health. Menelaos Apostolou deepens our understanding of human nature by exploring what is good and evil in an evolutionary sense as well as in relation to religious dogmas; and whether making fitness-increasing life choices can lead to more good or more evil acts.

This invaluable book is the first of its kind on 'selforganizology', the science of self-organization. It covers a wide range of topics, such as the theory, principle and methodology of selforganizology, agent-based modelling, intelligence basis, ant colony optimization, fish/particle swarm optimization, cellular automata, spatial diffusion models, evolutionary algorithms, self-adaptation and control systems, self-organizing neural networks, catastrophe theory and methods, and self-organization of biological communities, etc.Readers will have an in-depth and comprehensive understanding of selforganizology, with detailed background information provided for those who wish to delve deeper into the subject and explore research literature.This book is a valuable reference for research scientists, university teachers, graduate students and high-level undergraduates in the areas of computational science, artificial intelligence, applied mathematics, engineering science, social science and life sciences.