Download or read book Evolutionary Dynamics of Wild Populations written by Delphine Legrand and published by . This book was released on 2021-11 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume highlights the richness of studies focusing on the evolutionary dynamics of wild populations. It shows the diversity of organisms and approaches that can be used to reveal and understand empirical patterns, with-often, but not always-the goal of improving the long-term conservation of wild populations. This diversity reflects the diversity of questions that occupy evolutionary biologists working in wild populations, which go from revealing their global (epi)genetic and phenotypic structure at different spatial and temporal scales to the search of the inherited bases of ecologically relevant phenotypic traits. This volume should be an important contribution to the field because firstly, papers selected in this issue provide answers to timely questions in evolutionary biology. Secondly, it proves that much has to be explored to understand the causes and consequences of evolutionary dynamics of wild populations, and hence that scientists still have to put effort into the study of wild populations.
Download or read book Evolutionary Dynamics of Wild Populations written by and published by . This book was released on 2008* with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Eco Evolutionary Dynamics written by and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2014-08-12 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The theme of this volume is to discuss Eco-evolutionary Dynamics. Updates and informs the reader on the latest research findings Written by leading experts in the field Highlights areas for future investigation
Download or read book Eco evolutionary Dynamics written by Andrew P. Hendry and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-09 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, scientists have realized that evolution can occur on timescales much shorter than the 'long lapse of ages' emphasized by Darwin - in fact, evolutionary change is occurring all around us all the time. This work provides an authoritative and accessible introduction to eco-evolutionary dynamics, a cutting-edge new field that seeks to unify evolution and ecology into a common conceptual framework focusing on rapid and dynamic environmental and evolutionary change.
Download or read book What Animal Models Can Tell Us about Evolutionary Dynamics and Genetic Architecture in Wild Populations written by and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Quantitative Genetics in the Wild written by Anne Charmantier and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-04-03 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the field of quantitative genetics - the study of the genetic basis of variation in quantitative characteristics such as body size, or reproductive success - is almost 100 years old, its application to the study of evolutionary processes in wild populations has expanded greatly over the last few decades. During this time, the use of 'wild quantitative genetics' has provided insights into a range of important questions in evolutionary ecology, ranging from studies conducting research in well-established fields such as life-history theory, behavioural ecology and sexual selection, to others addressing relatively new issues such as populations' responses to climate change or the process of senescence in natural environments. Across these fields, there is increasing appreciation of the need to quantify the genetic - rather than just the phenotypic - basis and diversity of key traits, the genetic basis of the associations between traits, and the interaction between these genetic effects and the environment. This research activity has been fuelled by methodological advances in both molecular genetics and statistics, as well as by exciting results emerging from laboratory studies of evolutionary quantitative genetics, and the increasing availability of suitable long-term datasets collected in natural populations, especially in animals. Quantitative Genetics in the Wild is the first book to synthesize the current level of knowledge in this exciting and rapidly-expanding area. This comprehensive volume also offers exciting perspectives for future studies in emerging areas, including the application of quantitative genetics to plants or arthropods, unraveling the molecular basis of variation in quantitative traits, or estimating non-additive genetic variance. Since this book deals with many fundamental questions in evolutionary ecology, it should be of interest to graduate, post-graduate students, and academics from a wide array of fields such as animal behaviour, ecology, evolution, and genetics.
Download or read book Niche Construction written by F. John Odling-Smee and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2013-02-15 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seemingly innocent observation that the activities of organisms bring about changes in environments is so obvious that it seems an unlikely focus for a new line of thinking about evolution. Yet niche construction--as this process of organism-driven environmental modification is known--has hidden complexities. By transforming biotic and abiotic sources of natural selection in external environments, niche construction generates feedback in evolution on a scale hitherto underestimated--and in a manner that transforms the evolutionary dynamic. It also plays a critical role in ecology, supporting ecosystem engineering and influencing the flow of energy and nutrients through ecosystems. Despite this, niche construction has been given short shrift in theoretical biology, in part because it cannot be fully understood within the framework of standard evolutionary theory. Wedding evolution and ecology, this book extends evolutionary theory by formally including niche construction and ecological inheritance as additional evolutionary processes. The authors support their historic move with empirical data, theoretical population genetics, and conceptual models. They also describe new research methods capable of testing the theory. They demonstrate how their theory can resolve long-standing problems in ecology, particularly by advancing the sorely needed synthesis of ecology and evolution, and how it offers an evolutionary basis for the human sciences. Already hailed as a pioneering work by some of the world's most influential biologists, this is a rare, potentially field-changing contribution to the biological sciences.
Download or read book Evolutionary Dynamics of Plant Pathogen Interactions written by Jeremy J. Burdon and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-31 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A broad view of plant-pathogen interactions illustrating the fundamental reciprocal role pathogens and hosts play in shaping each other's ecology and evolution.
Download or read book Natural Selection in the Wild MPB 21 Volume 21 written by John A. Endler and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natural selection is an immense and important subject, yet there have been few attempts to summarize its effects on natural populations, and fewer still which discuss the problems of working with natural selection in the wild. These are the purposes of John Endler's book. In it, he discusses the methods and problems involved in the demonstration and measurement of natural selection, presents the critical evidence for its existence, and places it in an evolutionary perspective. Professor Endler finds that there are a remarkable number of direct demonstrations of selection in a wide variety of animals and plants. The distribution of observed magnitudes of selection in natural populations is surprisingly broad, and it overlaps extensively the range of values found in artificial selection. He argues that the common assumption that selection is usually weak in natural populations is no longer tenable, but that natural selection is only one component of the process of evolution; natural selection can explain the change of frequencies of variants, but not their origins.
Download or read book Evolutionary Dynamics of a Natural Population written by B. Rosemary Grant and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1989-11-14 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The result of one of the most detailed and careful examinations of the behavior and ecology of a vertebrate ever conducted in the wild, this study addresses one of the major questions in evolutionary biology: why do some populations vary so much in morphological, ecological, behavioral, and physiological traits? By documenting the full range of variation within one population of a species and investigating the causal factors, Rosemary and Peter Grant provide impressive evidence that species are capable of evolutionary change within observable periods of time. Among the most dramatic examples of recent speciation and adaptive diversification are Darwin's Finches, which live in the Galápagos Islands. Darwin theorized that these closely related birds had evolved from a common ancestor to fill the available ecological niches on this remote archipelago. Not only have they evolved into thirteen species, but more recent study has shown that many of them exhibit striking variation in beak structure and other traits. For more than a decade, the Grants have studied one of these species, the large cactus finch, on the isolated Isla Genovesa. They present information on the environment and demographic features of the population, then discuss the range of genetic, ecological, and behavioral factors responsible for the unusually large morphological variation. They place the large cactus finch in its community setting to better understand its evolution and conclude by discussing the implications of the study for the genetic structure of small populations and the problems of conserving them. They illustrate their findings with an array of drawings, tables, and photographs.
Download or read book Experimental Tests of Rapid Eco evolutionary Dynamics in a Plant herbivore System written by Martin Mathieu Turcotte and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I then tested whether rapid evolution significantly impacts population dynamics in the wild. Evolving populations grew significantly faster, up to 42%, and reached up to 67% higher densities compared to non-evolving controls even in the face of environmental variation. Yet evolution only had this impact in the natural uncaged treatments highlighting that ecological context alters the strength of eco-evolutionary dynamics.
Download or read book Evolutionary Dynamics of Populations with a Local Interaction Structure written by Illan Eshel and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Evolutionary Conservation Biology written by Régis Ferrière and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-06-10 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As anthropogenic environmental changes spread and intensify across the planet, conservation biologists have to analyze dynamics at large spatial and temporal scales. Ecological and evolutionary processes are then closely intertwined. In particular, evolutionary responses to anthropogenic environmental change can be so fast and pronounced that conservation biology can no longer afford to ignore them. To tackle this challenge, areas of conservation biology that are disparate ought to be integrated into a unified framework. Bringing together conservation genetics, demography, and ecology, this book introduces evolutionary conservation biology as an integrative approach to managing species in conjunction with ecological interactions and evolutionary processes. Which characteristics of species and which features of environmental change foster or hinder evolutionary responses in ecological systems? How do such responses affect population viability, community dynamics, and ecosystem functioning? Under which conditions will evolutionary responses ameliorate, rather than worsen, the impact of environmental change?
Download or read book Phenotypic Integration written by Massimo Pigliucci and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2004 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The interface of evolution and development has attracted the attention of evolutionary and developmental biologists, geneticists, and organismal biologists. Pigliucci (ecology, evolutionary biology, University of Tennessee) and Preston (botany, Standford University) bring together work by experts in the field of phenotype integration, shedding ligh.
Download or read book EVOLUTIONARY DYNAMICS OF SEXUAL TRAITS DEMOGRAPHIC GENETIC AND BEHAVIORAL CONTINGENCIES written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The evolution of adaptation depends on genetic and phenotypic variation, both of which are expected to be depleted in populations as a result of selection. Thus, understanding the maintenance of variation in fitness-related traits is of central importance in evolutionary biology as such processes can mitigate the constraining effects of adaptation on evolutionary change. Secondary sexual traits involved in attracting mates offer conspicuous examples of adaptation and are suggestive of strong directional selection, yet abundant variation is commonly observed both within and among populations. One explanation posits that variation in elaborate sexual traits might be maintained by fluctuating selection, such that episodes of intense selection are interspersed by periods in which variation is shielded from elimination, yet little is known about the processes that lead to such heterogeneity. In many cases, mate choice results from highly localized social interactions such that fine scale demographic variation may contribute to variation in patterns of sexual selection, especially when individuals' attractiveness is assessed in comparison to local conspecifics. Additionally, selection on sexual traits might fluctuate when the fitness consequences of mate choice depends on the complementarity of male and female characters, such as when offspring viability is influenced by the genetic relatedness of parents. In this dissertation, I examined demographic, behavioral, and genetic causes of variation in sexually-selected male plumage ornaments in a wild population of house finches (Carpodacus mexicanus). Over a five-year field study, I found that mate choice occurred largely within small social groups, the composition of which was influenced by active social sampling by males, suggesting that variation in male sexual traits may be maintained as a result of behaviors that enable individuals to shape their environment of selection. Additionally, using a panel of neutral molecular markers, I found that parental relatedness predicted multiple metrics of offspring fitness, and also affected the ability of neonates to buffer development from environmental variation, suggesting that inbreeding is likely to have pervasive effects on the evolution of adaptation. Taken together, these studies provide evidence of distinct processes that contribute to the maintenance of quantitative variation in sexual traits in this natural population.
Download or read book Maternal Effects As Adaptations written by Timothy A. Mousseau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-18 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mothers have the ability to profoundly affect the quality of their offspring--from the size and quality of their eggs to where, when, and how eggs and young are placed, and from providing for and protecting developing young to choosing a mate. In many instances, these maternal effects may be the single most important contributor to variation in offspring fitness. This book explores the wide variety of maternal effects that have evolved in plants and animals as mechanisms of adaptation to temporally and spatially heterogeneous environments. Topics range from the evolutionary implications of maternal effects to the assessment and measurement of maternal effects. Four detailed case studies are also included. This book represents the first synthesis of the current state of knowledge concerning the evolution of maternal effects and their adaptive significance.
Download or read book Adaptive Genetic Variation in the Wild written by Timothy A. Mousseau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2000-01-13 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two of the great mysteries of biology yet to be explored concern the distribution and abundance of genetic variation in natural populations and the genetic architecture of complex traits. These are tied together by their relationship to natural selection and evolutionary history, and some of the keys to disclosing these secrets lie in the study of wild organisms in their natural environments. This book, featuring a superb selection of papers from leading authors, summarizes the state of current understanding about the extent of genetic variation within wild populations and the ways to monitor such variation. It proposes the idea that a fundamental objective of evolutionary ecology is necessary to predict organism, population, community, and ecosystem response to environmental change. In fact, the overall theme of the papers centers around the expression of genetic variation and how it is shaped by the action of natural selection in the natural environment. Patterns of adaptation in the past and the genetic basis of traits likely to be under selection in a dynamically changing environment is discussed along with a wide variety of techniques to test for genetic variation and its consequences, ranging from classical demography to the use of molecular markers. This book is perfect for professionals and graduate students in genetics, biology, ecology, conservation biology, and evolution.
