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

✍ Scribed by Theodore Garland Jr., Michael R. Rose

• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 750
• Edition: 1
• 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

Table of Contents......Page 8
List of Contributors......Page 14
Part I: INTRODUCTION TO EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION......Page 20
1. Darwin's Other Mistake......Page 22
2. The Importance of Experimental Studies in Evolutionary Biology......Page 34
3. Modeling Experimental Evolution Using Individual-Based Variance Components Models......Page 50
PART II: TYPES OF EXPERIMENTALEVOLUTION......Page 84
4. Experimental Evolution from the Bottom Up......Page 86
5. Experimental Evolutionary Domestication......Page 108
6. Long-Term Experimental Evolution and Adaptive Radiation......Page 130
7. The Experimental Study of Reverse Evolution......Page 154
8. Field Experiments, Introductions, and Experimental Evolution......Page 192
PART III: LEVELS OF OBSERVATION IN EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION......Page 214
9. Fitness, Demography, and Population Dynamics in Laboratory Experiments......Page 216
10. Laboratory Selection Studies of Life-History Physiology in Insects......Page 236
11. Behavior in Neurobiology......Page 282
12. Selection Experiments and Experimental Evolution of Performance and Physiology......Page 320
13. Through a Glass, Clearly......Page 372
PART IV: APPLICATIONS OF EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION......Page 408
14. Understanding Evolution Through the Phages......Page 410
15. Experimental Approaches to Studying the Evolution of Animal Form......Page 438
16. Sexual Exploits in Experimental Evolution......Page 498
17. Physiological Adaption in Laboratory Environments......Page 542
18. Evolution of Aging and Late Life......Page 570
19. Theoretical and Experimental Approaches to the Evolution of Altruism and the Levels of Selection......Page 604
20. Laboratory Experiments on Speciation......Page 650
PART V: CONCLUSION......Page 676
21. A Critique of Experimental Phylogenetics......Page 678
22. Laboratory Evolution Meets Catch-22......Page 690
Index......Page 722