Pattern and Process in Cultural Evolution
Pattern and Process in Cultural Evolution

Author: Stephen Shennan

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 9780520255999

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This volume offers an integrative approach to the application of evolutionary theory in studies of cultural transmission and social evolution and reveals the enormous range of ways in which Darwinian ideas can lead to productive empirical research, the touchstone of any worthwhile theoretical perspective. While many recent works on cultural evolution adopt a specific theoretical framework, such as dual inheritance theory or human behavioral ecology, Pattern and Process in Cultural Evolution emphasizes empirical analysis and includes authors who employ a range of backgrounds and methods to address aspects of culture from an evolutionary perspective. Editor Stephen Shennan has assembled archaeologists, evolutionary theorists, and ethnographers, whose essays cover a broad range of time periods, localities, cultural groups, and artifacts.

Macroevolution
Macroevolution

Author: Steven M. Stanley

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13:

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"Not only is a wealth of evidence presented to support the model of punctuated equilibria, but Stanley's stream of refreshing insights into classic topics of evolution, such as living fossils, mass extinctions and adaptive radiations add further weight to the validity of the general model".--GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. "Overall, Stanley offers an imaginative treatment of almost every issue in macroevolution".--AMERICAN SCIENTIST. 192 illustrations.

Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution
Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution

Author: Robert Lynn Carroll

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1997-04-28

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 9780521478090

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The factors that influenced the evolution of the vertebrates are compared with the importance of variation and selection that Darwin emphasised in this broad study of the patterns and forces of evolutionary change.

Evolution's Wedge
Evolution's Wedge

Author: David Pfennig

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2012-10-25

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 0520954041

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Evolutionary biology has long sought to explain how new traits and new species arise. Darwin maintained that competition is key to understanding this biodiversity and held that selection acting to minimize competition causes competitors to become increasingly different, thereby promoting new traits and new species. Despite Darwin’s emphasis, competition’s role in diversification remains controversial and largely underappreciated. In their synthetic and provocative book, evolutionary ecologists David and Karin Pfennig explore competition's role in generating and maintaining biodiversity. The authors discuss how selection can lessen resource competition or costly reproductive interactions by promoting trait evolution through a process known as character displacement. They further describe character displacement’s underlying genetic and developmental mechanisms. The authors then consider character displacement’s myriad downstream effects, ranging from shaping ecological communities to promoting new traits and new species and even fueling large-scale evolutionary trends. Drawing on numerous studies from natural populations, and written for a broad audience, Evolution’s Wedge seeks to inspire future research into character displacement’s many implications for ecology and evolution.

Microevolution Rate, Pattern, Process
Microevolution Rate, Pattern, Process

Author: Andrew P. Hendry

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 9401005850

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From guppies to Galapagos finches and from adaptive landscapes to haldanes, this compilation of contributed works provides reviews, perspectives, theoretical models, statistical developments, and empirical demonstrations exploring the tempo and mode of microevolution on contemporary to geological time scales. New developments, and reviews, of classic and novel empirical systems demonstrate the strength and diversity of evolutionary processes producing biodiversity within species. Perspectives and theoretical insights expand these empirical observations to explore patterns and mechanisms of microevolution, methods for its quantification, and implications for the evolution of biodiversity on other scales. This diverse assemblage of manuscripts is aimed at professionals, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates who desire a timely synthesis of current knowledge, an illustration of exciting new directions, and a springboard for future investigations in the study of microevolution in the wild.

Evolutionary Patterns and Processes
Evolutionary Patterns and Processes

Author: D. R. Lees

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13:

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Evolution is the central theme of all biology. Researcarcch in the many branches of evolutionary study continues to flourish. This book, based on a symposium of the Linnean Society, discusses the diversity in currentevolutionary research. It approaches the subject ambitiously and from several angles, bringing ttogether eminent authors from a variety of disciplines paleontologists traditionally with a macroevolutionary bias, neontologists concentrating on microevolutionary processes, and those studying the very essence ofsses and those studying the very essence of evolution the process of speciation in living organisms. Evolutionary Patterns and Processes will appeal to a broad spectrum of professional biologistsworking in such fields as paleontology, population biology, and evolutionary genetics. Biologists will enjoy chapters by Stephen J. Gould, discovering in the much earlier work of Hugo de Vries parallels with his ideas on punctuational evolution; Guy Bush,considering why there are so many small animals; Peter Sheldon, examining detailed fossil trilobite sequences for evidence of microevolutionary processes and considering models of speciation; as well as others dealing with cytological, ecological, and behavioral processes leading to the evolution of new species. None