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The availability of genomic blueprints for hundreds of species has led to a transformation in biology, encouraging the proliferation of adaptive arguments for the evolution of genomic features. This text explains why the details matter and presents a framework for how the architectural diversity of eukaryotic genomes and genes came to arise.
A major synthesis of homology, written by a top researcher in the field Homology—a similar trait shared by different species and derived from common ancestry, such as a seal's fin and a bird’s wing—is one of the most fundamental yet challenging concepts in evolutionary biology. This groundbreaking book provides the first mechanistically based theory of what homology is and how it arises in evolution. Günter Wagner, one of the preeminent researchers in the field, argues that homology, or character identity, can be explained through the historical continuity of character identity networks—that is, the gene regulatory networks that enable differential gene expression. He shows how character identity is independent of the form and function of the character itself because the same network can activate different effector genes and thus control the development of different shapes, sizes, and qualities of the character. Demonstrating how this theoretical model can provide a foundation for understanding the evolutionary origin of novel characters, Wagner applies it to the origin and evolution of specific systems, such as cell types; skin, hair, and feathers; limbs and digits; and flowers. The first major synthesis of homology to be published in decades, Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation reveals how a mechanistically based theory can serve as a unifying concept for any branch of science concerned with the structure and development of organisms, and how it can help explain major transitions in evolution and broad patterns of biological diversity.
Extensively reorganized and revised with the latest data from this rapidly changing field, Lewin's Essential GENES, Fourth Edition, provides students with a comprehensive overview of molecular biology and molecular genetics. The authors took care to carefully modify the chapter order in an effort to provide a more clear and student-friendly presentation of course material. Chapter material has been updated throughout, including a completely revised chapter on regulatory RNA, to keep pace with this advancing field. The Third Editions exceptional pedagogy enhances student learning and helps readers understand and retain key material like never before. Concept and Reasoning Checks at the end of each chapter section, End-of-Chapter Questions and Further Readings sections, as well as several categories of special topics boxes, expand and reinforce important concepts.
"Our remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire any human language -"the language faculty"--Raises important biological questions about language, including how it has evolved. This book by two distinguished scholars-- a computer scientist and a linguist-- addresses the enduring question of the evolution of language. Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky explain that until recently the evolutionary question could not be properly posed, because we did not have a clear idea of how to define "language" and therefore what it was that had evolved. But since the Minimalist Program, developed by Chomsky and others, we know the key ingredients of language and can put together an account of the evolution of human language and what distinguished us from all other animals."--
Kauffman here presents a brilliant new paradigm for evolutionary biology, one that extends the basic concepts of Darwinian evolution to accommodate recent findings and perspectives from the fields of biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. The book drives to the heart of the exciting debate on the origins of life and maintenance of order in complex biological systems. It explores the concept of self-organization into evolutionary theory--the extent to which selection itself can yield systems able to adapt more successfull. The approaches investigated here may prove to be the new center around which biological science itself may evolove. The work is written for all those interested in the cutting edge of research in the life sciences, including students and researchers in the fields of physics, biophysics, biochemistry, molecular biology, cell and developmental biophysics, biochemistry, molecular biology, cell and developmental biology, ecology, mathematics, philosophy, computer science, and social science. 273 illustration.
Douglas Futuyma presents an overview of current thinking on theories of evolution, aimed at an undergraduate audience.
