Evolutionary Biology / Genetics

Human Genetic Diversity: Functional Consequences for Health and Disease

Julian C. Knight

This book describes the remarkable progress which has been made in defining the extent and nature of human genetic variation, and its many consequences for us as individuals and in ... More

This book describes the remarkable progress which has been made in defining the extent and nature of human genetic variation, and its many consequences for us as individuals and in understanding human origins. A mix of cutting-edge and landmark studies are reviewed to provide an overview of the field combined with in-depth analysis of specific informative examples to show how progress has been achieved and likely future directions. The major classes of genetic variation are described, ranging from chromosomal level variation, to submicroscopic structural variation, to fine scale sequence level variation. The substantial progress achieved in defining the genetic basis of diseases is described for both diseases showing Mendelian inheritance and common multifactorial diseases. Efforts to catalogue human genetic variation, insights into genomic disorders, the role of copy number variation, segmental duplications and tandem repeats are highlighted together with progress which has lead to recent success with genome-wide association studies. Other chapters highlight the genetics of gene expression, evidence of selection and susceptibility to diseases such as malaria and HIV infection. Human genetic variation has implications across a broad range of disciplines and this text aims to consolidate work in diverse fields to highlight common themes and principles. To facilitate this the basic principles of human molecular genetics are described throughout the text, which is extensively illustrated. Less

Insect Infection and Immunity: Evolution, Ecology, and Mechanisms

Jens Rolff, Stuart Reynolds (eds)

Under continual attack from both microbial pathogens and multicellular parasites, insects must cope with immune challenges every day of their lives. However, this has not prevented them ... More

Under continual attack from both microbial pathogens and multicellular parasites, insects must cope with immune challenges every day of their lives. However, this has not prevented them from becoming the most successful group of animals on the planet. Insects possess highly-developed innate immune systems which have been fine-tuned by an arms race with pathogens spanning hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary history. Recent discoveries are revealing both an unexpected degree of specificity and an indication of immunological memory — the functional hallmark of vertebrate immunity. The study of insect immune systems has accelerated rapidly in recent years and is now becoming an important interdisciplinary field. Furthermore, insects are a phenomenally rich and diverse source of antimicrobial chemicals. Some of these are already being seriously considered as potential therapeutic agents to control microbes such as MRSA. This book provides a coherent synthesis and is structured around two broadly themed sections: mechanisms of immunity and evolutionary ecology. This text adopts an interdisciplinary and concept-driven approach, integrating insights from immunology, molecular biology, ecology, evolutionary biology, parasitology, and epidemiology. Less

Inside the Human Genome: A Case for Non-Intelligent Design

John C. Avise

Humanity's physical design flaws have long been apparent—we get hemorrhoids and impacted wisdom teeth, for instance—but do the imperfections extend down to the molecular level of our ... More

Humanity's physical design flaws have long been apparent—we get hemorrhoids and impacted wisdom teeth, for instance—but do the imperfections extend down to the molecular level of our genes? Inside the Human Genome is the first comprehensive book to examine the philosophical question of why, from the perspectives of biochemistry and molecular genetics, flaws empirically exist in the biological world. This book offers a panoramic yet penetrating exploration of the many gross deficiencies in human DNA—ranging from new mutational defects to ancient design faults—while at the same time offering a comprehensive treatment of recent findings about the human genome. The author shows that overwhelming scientific evidence for genomic imperfection provides a compelling counterargument to Intelligent Design. He also develops a case that theologians should welcome rather than disavow these scientific discoveries. The evolutionary sciences can help mainstream religions escape the shackles of Intelligent Design, and thereby return religion to its rightful realm—not as the secular interpreter of the biological minutiae of our physical existence, but rather as a respectable philosophical counselor on grander matters of ultimate concern. Less

Parsimony, Phylogeny, and Genomics

Victor A. Albert (ed.)

Parsimony analysis (cladistics) has long been one of the most widely used methods of phylogenetic inference in the fields of systematic and evolutionary biology. Moreover, it has ... More

Parsimony analysis (cladistics) has long been one of the most widely used methods of phylogenetic inference in the fields of systematic and evolutionary biology. Moreover, it has mathematical attributes that lend themselves for use with complex, genomic-sacle data sets. In this book, specialists review philosophical, statistical, methodological, and mathematical aspects of parsimony analysis, and demonstrate the potential that this powerful hierarchical data summarization method has for both structural and functional genomics research. Less

Perspectives in Animal Phylogeny and Evolution

Alessandro Minelli

Animal phylogeny is currently undergoing a major revolution due to the availability of an exponentially increasing amount of molecular data and the application of novel methods of ... More

Animal phylogeny is currently undergoing a major revolution due to the availability of an exponentially increasing amount of molecular data and the application of novel methods of phylogenetic reconstruction, as well as the many spectacular advances in palaeontology and molecular developmental biology. Traditional views of the relationships among major phyla have been shaken up and new, often unexpected, relationships are now being considered. At the same time, the emerging discipline of evolutionary developmental biology, or evo-devo, has offered new insights into the origin and evolvability of major traits of animal architecture and life cycle. All these developments call for a revised interpretation of the pathways along which animal structure and development has evolved since the origin of the Metazoa. This book takes on this challenge, successfully integrating morphological, fossil, and molecular evidence to produce a novel reinterpretation of animal evolution. Central to the book's approach is an evo-devo perspective on animal evolution (with all the fresh insights this has given into the origin of animal organization and life cycles), complementary to the more traditional perspectives of pattern (cladistics, comparative anatomy, and embryology), mechanisms (developmental biology), and adaptation (evolutionary biology). The book advocates the need to approach the study of animal evolution with a critical attitude towards many key concepts of comparative morphology and developmental biology. Particular attention in the book is paid to the evolution of life cycles and larval forms. Less

Population Genetics, Linguistics, and Culture History in the Southwest Pacific

Jonathan S. Friedlaender (ed.)

The broad arc of islands north of Australia, extending from Indonesia east towards the central Pacific, is home to a set of human populations whose diversity is unsurpassed elsewhere. ... More

The broad arc of islands north of Australia, extending from Indonesia east towards the central Pacific, is home to a set of human populations whose diversity is unsurpassed elsewhere. Approximately 20% of the world's languages are spoken here, and the biological and genetic heterogeneity among the groups is also extraordinary. This book describes the origins of the genetic and linguistic variation there. It lays out the very complex structure of the variation within and among the islands in this relatively small but important region. This book applies genetic analyses to an intensively sampled set of populations, and subjects these and complementary linguistic data to a variety of phylogenetic analyses. This reveals a number of heretofore unknown ancient Pleistocene genetic variants that are only found in these island populations, and identifies the genetic footprints of more recent migrants from Southeast Asia who were the ancestors of the Polynesians. Finally, a number of explanatory models are tested to see which best account for the observed pattern of genetic variation. The results indicate that a number of commonly used models of evolutionary divergence and biogeography are overly simple in their assumptions, and that human diversity often has accumulated in very complex ways. Less

The Principles of Life

Tibor Ganti

Eors Szathmary, James Griesemer (eds)

What is life? What are the essential differences between the living and non-living systems? The exact scientific answers to these ancient questions are indispensable preconditions for ... More

What is life? What are the essential differences between the living and non-living systems? The exact scientific answers to these ancient questions are indispensable preconditions for the understanding of the origins of life, for the artificial synthesis of living systems, but also for some important social problems, such as the beginning and the end of the human life. Based on the author's theory of fluid (chemical) automata, this book proves that all living systems are basically program-controlled, self-reproducing fluid automata, and that such automata behave as living systems. The simplest such construction — the chemoton — behaves as living, and all living systems have chemoton-type organization. This means that the chemoton model is the minimum model of life. The technical details have been published elsewhere: in this volume the logical train of thought is presented in a clear and easily understandable manner. The first part gives a general view of the idea; the second shows its application to the biogenesis; and the third gives the background of the theory in the natural philosophy of sciences. The author's chemical perspective captures the fundamentally cyclic organization of the living state, offers a fresh approach to the ancient problem of life criteria, and articulates a philosophy of the units of life applicable to genetics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, and exact theoretical biology. New notes throughout the text bring this legacy into dialogue with current thought in biology and philosophy. Less

A Red Bird in a Brown Bag: The Function and Evolution of Colorful Plumage in the House Finch

Geoffrey E. Hill

The House Finch is among the most mundane birds, so ubiquitous and familiar across the U.S. and Canada that it does not rate a glance from most bird enthusiasts. But males have ... More

The House Finch is among the most mundane birds, so ubiquitous and familiar across the U.S. and Canada that it does not rate a glance from most bird enthusiasts. But males have carotenoid-based plumage coloration that varies markedly among individuals, making the House Finch a model species for studies of the function and evolution of colorful plumage. In more depth and detail than has been attempted for any species of bird, this book takes a tour of the hows and whys of ornamental plumage coloration. The book begins by reviewing the history of the study of colorful plumage, which began in earnest with the debates of Darwin and Wallace but which was largely forgotten by the middle of the 20th century. Documenting the extensive plumage variation among males both within and between populations of House Finches, the book explores the mechanisms behind plumage variation and looks at the fitness consequences of condition-dependent ornament display for both males and females. The book concludes by examining the processes by which carotenoid-based ornamental coloration may have evolved. Less

Reticulate Evolution and Humans: Origins and Ecology

Michael L. Arnold

This book is an exploration of how the transfer of genes between divergent lineages — through a diverse array of mechanisms — has affected, and continues to affect, humans. In ... More

This book is an exploration of how the transfer of genes between divergent lineages — through a diverse array of mechanisms — has affected, and continues to affect, humans. In particular, it is a journey into the data that support the hypothesis that Homo sapiens as well as those organisms upon which it depends for survival and battles against for existence are marked by mosaic genomes. This mosaicism reflects the rampant (as reflected by the proportion of organisms that illustrate this process) exchange of genetic material during evolutionary diversification. This is the underlying hypothesis for this book. The book follows in the various chapters that it also reflects the consistent observation made when the genomes of organisms are mined for genetic variation. Less

Selection: The Mechanism of Evolution

Graham Bell

Adaptation is caused by selection continually winnowing the genetic variation created by mutation. In the last ten years, our knowledge of how selection operates on populations in the ... More

Adaptation is caused by selection continually winnowing the genetic variation created by mutation. In the last ten years, our knowledge of how selection operates on populations in the field and in the laboratory has increased enormously, and this book aims to provide an up-to-date account of selection as the principal agent of evolution. In the classical Fisherian model, weak selection acting on many genes of small effect over long periods of time is responsible for driving slow and gradual change. It is now clear that adaptation in laboratory populations often involves strong selection acting on a few genes of large effect, while in the wild selection is often strong and highly variable in space and time. These results are changing our perception of how evolutionary change takes place. This book summarizes current understanding of the causes and consequences of selection, with an emphasis on quantitative and experimental studies. It includes material on experimental evolution, natural selection in the wild, artificial selection, selfish genetic elements, and selection in social contexts, sexual selection, and speciation. Less