Experimental Evolution: Concepts, Methods, and Applications of Selection Experiments

✍ Scribed by Theodore Garland (editor); Michael R. Rose (editor)

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 748
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Experimental approaches to evolution provide indisputable evidence of evolution by directly observing the process at work. Experimental evolution deliberately duplicates evolutionary processes—forcing life histories to evolve, producing adaptations to stressful environmental conditions, and generating lineage splitting to create incipient species. This unique volume summarizes studies in experimental evolution, outlining current techniques and applications, and presenting the field’s full range of research—from selection in the laboratory to the manipulation of populations in the wild. It provides work on such key biological problems as the evolution of Darwinian fitness, sexual reproduction, life history, athletic performance, and learning.

✦ Table of Contents

CONTENTS
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
PART I. INTRODUCTION TO EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION
1. DARWIN’S OTHER MISTAKE
2. THE IMPORTANCE OF EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES IN EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
3. MODELING EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION USING INDIVIDUAL-BASED, VARIANCE-COMPONENTS MODELS
PART II. TYPES OF EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION
4. EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION FROM THE BOTTOM UP
5. EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTIONARY DOMESTICATION
6. LONG-TERM EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION AND ADAPTIVE RADIATION
7. THE EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF REVERSE EVOLUTION
8. Field Experiments, Introductions, and Experimental Evolution: A Review and Practical Guide
PART III. LEVELS OF OBSERVATION IN EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION
9. FITNESS, DEMOGRAPHY, AND POPULATION DYNAMICS IN LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS
10. LABORATORY SELECTION STUDIES OF LIFE-HISTORY PHYSIOLOGY IN INSECTS
11. BEHAVIOR AND NEUROBIOLOGY
12. SELECTION EXPERIMENTS AND EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION OF PERFORMANCE AND PHYSIOLOGY
13. Through a Glass, Clearly: Experimental Evolution as a Window on Adaptive Genome Evolution
PART IV. APPLICATIONS OF EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION
14. UNDERSTANDING EVOLUTION THROUGH THE PHAGES
15. Experimental Approaches to Studying the Evolution of Animal Form: The Shape of Things to Come
16. SEXUAL EXPLOITS IN EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION
17. PHYSIOLOGICAL ADAPTATION IN LABORATORY ENVIRONMENTS
18. EVOLUTION OF AGING AND LATE LIFE
19. THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL APPROACHES TO THE EVOLUTION OF ALTRUISM AND THE LEVELS OF SELECTION
20. LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS ON SPECIATION
PART V. CONCLUSION
21. A CRITIQUE OF EXPERIMENTAL PHYLOGENETICS
22. Laboratory Evolution Meets Catch-22: Balancing Simplicity and Realism
INDEX