Biology

Chickadees and titmice are among the most popular birds in North America, due in large part to their readiness to use bird feeders, to nest in urban gardens, and even to be trained to take food from people's hands. These attributes have also made them (and their Eurasian tit counterparts) perhaps the most intensively studied bird family in the world. Long-term research in Europe has yielded some of the most comprehensive data on the impact of global warming on the breeding ecology of birds. Chickadees have amongst the best-studied and most complex vocal behaviour of any bird species, displaying one of the closest analogies to human sentence structure in the animal kingdom in their familiar chick-a-dee call. The social dominance hierarchies commonly witnessed in the form of squabbling at winter feeders are some of most stable and closely studied, and have huge impacts on controlling the lives of these small birds. Their food-storing behaviour, and the brain and physiological mechanisms controlling this, has contributed significantly to our wider understanding of spatial orientation. In recent years, these birds have also been used as model species for investigating topics as diverse as inter-species hybridization, the impacts of forest fragmentation and complex systems of communication. In short, chickadees and titmice have contributed enormously to our understanding of a myriad of topics in ecology, behaviour, and psychology. Each chapter in this book reviews the latest advances in evolution and behavioural research that have been accomplished through the study of North American Parids, and compares and contrasts this literature with research on their Eurasian counterparts as well as other avian families.

Symbiotic relationships between plants and fungi are extremely common in nature, ranging from highly parasitic to closely mutualistic. Grasses, which are common and ecologically important components of many ecosystems worldwide, are often infected by clandestine, endosymbiotic fungi that grow within their stems, leaves, and seeds. This book attempts to synthesize the accumulating literature on grass-endophyte symbioses within a modern ecological and evolutionary framework. Topics covered include effects of endophytes on host growth, physiology, reproduction, and competitive ability in both agronomically important forages such as tall fescue and perennial ryegrass and in native grasses. Also, endophyte-host interactions are explored in relation to abiotic (e.g., drought) and biotic stresses (e.g., herbivory). Possible effects of endophyte infection on community and ecosystem-level processes are discussed. The ecological outcomes and coevolutionary dynamics of grass-endophyte associations are shown to be highly contingent on host and endophyte genotypes as well as environmental conditions. In addition to synthesizing much of the current literature on grass-endophyte interactions in natural and managed habitats, this book highlights gaps in current knowledge of specific aspects of symbiosis ecology and suggests many avenues for future research. Endophytic fungi are common in plants yet the nature of these interactions and how they cascade upward to communities and ecosystems are largely unknown.

This book reviews a variety of evolutionary themes and uses the small terrestrial orchids of Australia to introduce and illustrate these themes. Among the topics explored are the competing ideas of biologists who use the theory of natural selection when examining possible adaptations (such as the ability of orchid flowers to attract special pollinators) and those who reject this approach, including creationists as well as the late Stephen Jay Gould. Darwin’s own ideas on the topic are reviewed as his work on adaptive plant behavior, given that orchids provide examples of flowers with moving parts. In addition, the book outlines the ability of evolutionary biologists to trace the origin and subsequent modification of complex traits like the extraordinarily unusual flowers of certain orchids. The book also employs Australian orchids to demonstrate the challenges of determining what a species is and how to preserve the biodiversity that still exists in the world.

This book explores the connections between two of the most transformative processes of the 21st century, namely global environmental change and globalization. It presents a conceptual framework for analyzing the interactions between these two processes, and illustrates, through case studies, how these interactions create situations of “double exposure.” Drawing upon case studies largely related to climate change, the book shows how prominent recent and current environmental events — recurring droughts in India, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the melting of the Arctic ice sheet — demonstrate different pathways of interaction between globalization and global environmental change. Each of these pathways shows how broader human security concerns, including increasing inequality, growing vulnerability, and unsustainable rates of development, are integrally connected to both processes of global change. The double exposure framework not only sheds light on the dangers associated with these two global processes, but also reveals possibilities for using the interactions to generate opportunities for positive action. The book ultimately challenges the ways that global environmental change and globalization are viewed and addressed. By drawing attention to double exposure, the book shows how integrated responses to global environmental change and globalization can create new types of synergies that promote sustainability and enhance human security.

For the inhabitants of many of the world's major cities and towns, estuaries provide their nearest glimpse of a natural habitat; a habitat which, despite the attempts of man to pollute or reclaim it, has remained a fascinating insight into a natural world where energy is transformed from sunlight into plant material, and then, through the steps of a food chain, is converted into a rich food supply for birds and fish. This book first outlines the estuarine environment and the physical and biological factors that are important within it. It then examines the responses of the animals and plants to these factors, considers the problems of life in estuaries and why so few species have adapted to it, and then proposes a food web for an estuary. The coastal waters of the sea, and especially the waters of estuaries, are widely polluted. Thus in practice, marine pollution is often essentially estuarine pollution. To reflect this large impact of mankind on estuaries, and to consider how mankind may either destroy or enrich the estuarine ecosystem, chapters consider pollution in estuaries, and the diverse uses and abuses of the estuarine habitat by man, as well as the methods used to study human-induced changes in estuaries, and the ways in which estuarine management can either monitor, control, or prevent pollution or destruction of the estuarine ecosystem.

Scientific facts can be so complicated that only specialists in a field fully appreciate the details, but the nature of everyday practice that gives rise to these facts should be understandable by everyone interested in science. This book describes how scientists bring their own interests and passions to their work, illustrates the dynamics between researchers and the research community, and emphasizes a contextual understanding of science in place of the linear model found in textbooks with its singular focus on “scientific method”. This book also introduces readers to issues about science and society. Practice requires value judgments: What should be done? Who should do it? Who should pay for it? How much? Balancing scientific opportunities with societal needs depends on appreciating both the promises and the ambiguities of science. Understanding practice informs discussions about how to manage research integrity, conflict of interest, and the challenge of modern genetics to human research ethics. Society cannot have the benefits of research without the risks. The last chapter contrasts the practices of science and religion as reflective of two different types of faith and describes a holistic framework within which they dynamically interact.

It is now increasingly acknowledged that an evolutionary perspective can give us important new insights into issues central to medical research and practice. This fully revised and updated edition, which consists of roughly 95% new material, contains contributions from leading researchers who provide a fresh summary of this rapidly expanding field. It takes a broad approach to the subject, discussing medically relevant research from evolutionary genetics, evolutionary ecology, evolutionary epidemiology, the evolution of aging, and any other biological disciplines where evolutionary approaches make important contributions. The medical conditions discussed include diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, asthma, allergies and other autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, emerging diseases, and aging. It also provides insights into the evolutionary responses of pathogens to antibiotics and vaccines. What will happen if we continue to expand our use of antibiotics and vaccines? Why do we respond inappropriately (for example by developing cardiovascular disease) to many modern conditions? How do cancers evolve, particularly in response to chemotherapy? Why must we grow old, and can we do anything about it? This book discusses answers to these and many other questions.

The field of systematics has developed remarkably over the last few decades. A multitude of new methods and contributions from diverse biological fields — including molecular genetics and developmental biology — have provided a wealth of phylogenetic hypotheses, some confirming traditional views and others contradicting them. There is now sufficient evidence to draw up a ‘tree of life’ based on fairly robust phylogenetic relationships. This book aims to apply these new phylogenies to an evolutionary interpretation of animal organ systems and body architecture. Organs do not appear suddenly during evolution: instead they are composed of far simpler structures. In some cases, it is even possible to trace particular molecules or physiological pathways as far back as pre-animal history. What emerges is a fascinating picture, showing how animals have combined ancestral and new elements in novel ways to form constantly changing responses to environmental requirements. The book starts with a general overview of animal systematics to set the framework for the discussion of organ system evolution. The chapters deal with the general organization, integument, musculature, nervous system, sensory structures, body cavities, excretory, respiratory and circulatory organs, the intestinal and reproductive system, and spermatozoa. Each organ system is presented with its function, the diversity of forms that are realized among metazoan animals, and the reconstruction of its evolution.

Social behavior occurs in some of the smallest animals as well as some the largest, and the transition from solitary life to sociality is an unsolved evolutionary mystery. The Evolution of Social Wasps examines social behavior in a single lineage of insects, wasps of the family Vespidae. It presents empirical knowledge of social wasps from two approaches: one that focuses on phylogeny and life history; and one that focuses on individual ontogeny, colony development, and population dynamics. It also provides an extensive summary of the existing literature while demonstrating how it can be clouded by theory. This approach to the conflicting literature on sociality highlights how often repeated models can become fixed in the thinking of the scientific community. Instead, it presents a mechanistic scenario for the evolution of sociality in wasps that changes our perspective on kin selection, the paradigm that has dominated thinking about social evolution since the 1970s.

Even before the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, the perception of evolutionary change has been a tree-like pattern of diversification — with divergent branches spreading further and further from the trunk. In the only illustration of Darwin's treatise, branches large and small never reconnect. However, it is now evident that this view does not adequately encompass the richness of evolutionary pattern and process. Instead, the evolution of species from microbes to mammals builds like a web that crosses and re-crosses through genetic exchange, even as it grows outward from a point of origin. Some of the avenues for genetic exchange, for example introgression through sexual recombination versus lateral gene transfer mediated by transposable elements, are based on definably different molecular mechanisms. However, even such widely different genetic processes may result in similar effects on adaptations (either new or transferred), genome evolution, population genetics, and the evolutionary/ecological trajectory of organisms. For example, the evolution of novel adaptations (resulting from lateral gene transfer) leading to the flea-borne, deadly, causative agent of plague from a rarely-fatal, orally-transmitted, bacterial species is quite similar to the adaptations accrued from natural hybridization between annual sunflower species resulting in the formation of several new species. Thus, more and more data indicate that evolution has resulted in lineages consisting of mosaics of genes derived from different ancestors. It is therefore becoming increasingly clear that the tree is an inadequate metaphor of evolutionary change. In this book, the author promotes the ‘web-of-life’ metaphor as a more appropriate representation of evolutionary change in all life-forms.