Evolution The Origins and Mechanisms of Diversity

About this book

Evolution is the single unifying principle of biology and core to everything in the life sciences. More than a century of work by scientists from across the biological spectrum has produced a detailed history of life across the phyla and explained the mechanisms by which new species form.

This textbook covers both this history and the mechanisms of speciation; it also aims to provide students with the background needed to read the research literature on evolution. Students will therefore learn about cladistics, molecular phylogenies, the molecular-genetical basis of evolutionary change including the important role of protein networks, symbionts and holobionts, together with the core principles of developmental biology. Evolution: The Origins and Mechanisms of Diversity also includes introductory appendices that provide background knowledge on, for example, the diversity of life today, fossils, the geology of Earth and the history of evolutionary thought.

Contents

Preface

SECTION I: AN INTRODUCTION TO EVOLUTION
1. Approaching Evolution
2. A Potted History of Evolutionary Science
3. The Ancient World
4. Life Today: Species Diversity and Classification

SECTION II. THE EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION
5. Analysing Evolutionary Change
6. The Anatomical Evidence for Evolutionary Change
7. The Genomic Evidence
8. The Evo-Devo Evidence

SECTION III: THE HISTORY OF LIFE
9. The First Two Billion Years
10. The Roots of the Eukaryotic Tree of Life
11. The Evolution of Algae and Plants
12. The Evolution of Multicellular Organisms in the Ediacaran period
13. The Cambrian Explosion and the Evolution of Protostomes
14. Deuterostome Evolution: From the Beginnings to the Amphibians
15. Vertebrate Evolution: Stem Mammals, Reptiles and Birds
16. Vertebrate Evolution: Mammals

SECTION IV: MECHANISMS OF EVOLUTION
17. Variation 1: Mutations and Phenotypes
18. Variation 2: Evolutionary Change
19. Adaptation, Symbionts and Holobionts
20. Selection
21. Evolutionary Population Genetics
22. Speciation

SECTION V: HUMAN EVOLUTION
23. Human Evolution 1: The Fossil Evidence
24. Human Evolution 2: Genes and Migrations
25. Human Evolution 3: The Origins of Modern Humans
26. Conclusions 

Appendix 1. Systems Biology
Appendix 2. A History of Evolutionary Thought
Appendix 3. A Brief History of the World
Appendix 4. Rocks, Dates and Fossils
Appendix 5. Constructing Molecular Phylogenies
Appendix 6. Three Key Model Organisms: Mouse, Drosophila and H. sapiens
Appendix 7. Some Principles of Animal Developmental Biology
Appendix 8. Evolution Versus Creationism

Glossary
Acknowledgements
Index

Customer Reviews

Biography

Professor Jonathan Bard is a vertebrate developmental anatomist who has also published research papers in evolutionary, theoretical and systems biology and in bioinformatics. He worked at the MRC Human Genetics Unit and at the University of Edinburgh and is currently a graduate advisor at Balliol College Oxford.