The Character Concept in Evolutionary Biology

✍ Scribed by Günter P. Wagner (Eds.)

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 620
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

• offers a variety of perspectives, sometimes clashing, on how characters are defined, identified, and used in biology.'' -SCIENCE (June 2001) ''...a book worth paying attention to. ...This is a useful book that has fulfilled Wagner's goal of summarizing information on this topic and stimulating discussion. Read it as soon as you can or risk being left behind as an area that is fundamental to all we do as systematists takes off.''
  —Norm MacLeod, The Natural History Museum, UK, in THE PALAEONTOLOGICAL ASSOCATION NEWSLETTER (2001)

✦ Table of Contents

Content:
Contributors, Pages xi-xiii
Preface, Pages xv-xvi, GPW
Foreword, Pages xvii-xxiii, R.C. Lewontin
Characters, Units and Natural Kinds: An Introduction, Pages 1-10, Günter P. Wagner
Historical Roots of the Character Concept, Pages 11-12
1 - A History of Character Concepts in Evolutionary Biology, Pages 13-35, Kurt M. Fristrup
2 - An Episode in the History of the Biological Character Concept: The Work of Oskar and Cécile Vogt, Pages 37-56, Manfred Dietrich Laubichler
3 - Preformationist and Epigenetic Biases in the History of the Morphological Character Concept, Pages 57-75, Olivier Rieppel
New Approaches to the Character Concept, Pages 77-80
4 - Character Replication, Pages 81-107, V. Louise Roth
5 - Characters as the Units of Evolutionary Change, Pages 109-140, David Houle
6 - Character Identification: The Role of the Organism, Pages 141-163, Günter P. Wagner, Manfred D. Laubichler
7 - Functional Units and Their Evolution, Pages 165-198, Kurt Schwenk
8 - The Character Concept: Adaptationalism to Molecular Developments, Pages 199-214, Alex Rosenberg
9 - The Mathematical Structure of Characters and Modularity, Pages 215-236, Junhyong Kim, Minhyong Kim
10 - Wholes and Parts in General Systems Methodology, Pages 237-256, Martin Zwick
Operationalizing the Detection of Characters, Pages 257-258
11 - What is a Part?, Pages 259-284, Daniel W. McShea, Edward P. Venit
12 - Behavioral Characters and Historical Properties of Motor Patterns, Pages 285-301, Peter C. Wainwright, John P. Friel
13 - Homology and DNA Sequence Data, Pages 303-317, Ward Wheeler
14 - Character Polarity and the Rooting of Cladograms, Pages 319-338, Harold N. Bryant
The Mechanistic Architecture of Characters, Pages 339-341
15 - The Structure of a Character and the Evolution of Patterns, Pages 343-361, Paul M. Brakefield
16 - Characters and Environments, Pages 363-388, Massimo Pigliucci
17 - The Genetic Architecture of Quantitative Traits, Pages 389-409, Trudy F.C. Mackay
18 - The Genetic Architecture of Pleiotropic Relations and Differential Epistasis, Pages 411-433, James M. Cheverud
19 - Homologies of Process and Modular Elements of Embryonic Construction, Pages 435-454, Scott F. Gilbert, Jessica A. Bolker
20 - Comparative Limb Development as a Tool for Understanding the Evolutionary Diversification of Limbs in Arthropods: Challenging the Modularity Paradigm, Pages 455-488, Lisa M. Nagy, Terri A. Williams
The Evolutionary Origin of Characters, Pages 489-491
21 - Origins of Flower Morphology, Pages 493-510, Peter K. Endress
22 - Origin of Butterfly Wing Patterns, Pages 511-529, H. Fred Nijhout
23 - Perspectives on the Evolutionary Origin of Tetrapod Limbs, Pages 531-558, Javier Capdevila, Juan Carlos Izpisá Belmonte
24 - Epigenetic Mechanisms of Character Origination, Pages 559-579, Stuart A. Newman, Gerd B. Müller
25 - Key Innovations and Radiations, Pages 581-605, Frietson Galis
Index, Pages 607-622