New Horizons in Evolution is a compendium of the latest research, analyses, and theories of evolutionary biology. Chapters are collected from the international symposium held by the Board of Governors of the University of Haifa to honor Dr. Eviatar Nevo, founder and director of the Institute of Evolution. This book includes material written by top global scientists. Such detailed summaries and recent advances include topics like genomics, epigenetics, evolutionary theory, and the evolution of cancer. This book analyzes evolutionary biology of animals, such as lizards and subterranean mammals. It also discusses agricultural evolution, specifically the vital wheat crop in various climates and locations. Each chapter contributes the most up-to-date knowledge of evolution's role in speciation, adaptation, and regulation. New Horizons in Evolution is a valuable resource for researchers involved in evolution, evolutionary biology, and evolutionary theory. Advanced undergraduate and graduate students in evolutionary biology courses will also find this useful due to the high expertise level and latest knowledge available through this resource.

This volume consists of papers written by evolutionary, molecular and organismal biologists, geneticists, ecologists, behavioural ecologists, morphologists, mathematicians, theoreticians and experimentalists, in honour of Professor Eviatar (Eibi) Nevo on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. The contributors are only a small subset of Eibi's many friends, collaborators and students (not that one can distinguish these categories among Eibi's colleagues). His widespread influence and activity, both in Israel and more generally, as a leading evolutionary biologist is indicated by his many co-authors on books and papers, and by his many students integrated in teaching and research. This volume presents some of the most recent dramatic results of molecular, genomic, and organismal evolutionary processes. It represents analyses, experiments, observations, reviews, discussions and forecasts of evolutionary theory comprising both novel methods and results, reanalyzed and reviewed data sets based on comparative, experimental, and theoretical studies utilizing model organisms across phylogeny, including bacteria, fungi, plants, animals and humans. It elucidates the revolution in molecular biology that ushered in our understanding of the evolutionary process over time and space. The topics discussed include major problems of evolutionary theory concerning origins, phylogeny, relative importance of evolutionary forces, structure and function, adaptation and speciation in space and time in changing and stressful environments. A major emerging generalization is the nonrandomness of genome structure highlighting the importance of natural selection as a major organizing evolutionary force not onlyat the phenotypic level, but most importantly at the interlinked genotypic molecular level. The integration between the molecular and organismal levels unifies life which is subjected to the mechanism of natural selection as a major orienting evolutionary force.

Evolution is the most profound of human ideas integrating all natural phenomena: cosmic, biological, and cultural into a continuous universal change. This volume deals with evolutionary observations, experiments, and theories contributing to a deeper understanding of the evolutionary process, th honoring the 75 birthday of Eviatar (Eibi) Nevo. I first met Eibi in 1966 when he was a Fellow in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University and working mostly on cricket frog vocalization and speciation in the United States. His unique discovery of pipid fossil frogs in the Israeli Early Cretaceous, central Negev, is possibly the largest world collection of ancient fossil frogs. Our acquaintance developed into mutual friendship and admiration. Since then our long-lasting friendship has included a visit to Israel, enabling me to follow Eibi's major scientific achievements, in particular, his founding of the Institute of Evolution in the University of Haifa and now the pending establishment of the International Graduate School of Evolution. The research program of Eibi Nevo, in collaboration with numerous colleagues and students in Israel and across the world, encompasses diverse perspectives of evolutionary biology and biodiversity of genes, populations, species, and ecosystems integrating modem and classical evolutionary approaches, molecular and organismal. They deal with model organisms in all forms from bacteria through plants, fungi, animals, and humans conducted over local, regional, and global scales.

This volwne consists ofpapers written by evolutionary, molecular and organismal biologists, geneticists, ecologists, behavioural ecologists, morphologists, mathematicians, theoreticians and experimentalists, in honour of Professor Eviatar (Eibi) Nevo on the occasion ofhis seventieth birthday. The contributors are only a small subset ofEibi's many friends, collaborators and students (not that one can distinguish these categories among Eibi's colleagues). His widespread influence and activity, both in Ismel and more genemlly, as a leading evolutionary biologist is indicated by his many co-authors on books and papers, and byhis many students integmted in teaching and research. Sensible publishers, and indeed readers, reflexively flinch from Festschrifts, which too often are well-intentioned but inchoate collections of papers (frequently recycled). This particular collection, however, is unified by the way the editors have built on Eibi's own work, to provide a connective narrative and synthesis, much ofwhich is new material. The unifYing thread is evolutionary theory. As a result of recent advances at the interface between molecular and organismal biology, evolutionary theory is currently undergoing one of its most dynamic and dramatic developments, unravelling the origins, structure and evolution ofliving organisms. Over the past four decades, studies ofthe causes and consequences of biological diversity at every level - genes, genomes, populations, species, ecosystems, - have revolutionised evolutionary biology. New perspectives in ecological dynamics and in molecular biology and in diversity, along with complete sequencing ofthe first prokaryote and eukaryote genomes, highlight the evolutionary origins and relationships which underlie the unity and diversityoflife onour small planet.