Author :
Publisher : Academic Press
Page : 392 pages
File Size : 35,38 MB
Release : 2014-08-12
Category : Science
ISBN : 0128014334
The theme of this volume is to discuss Eco-evolutionary Dynamics. - Updates and informs the reader on the latest research findings - Written by leading experts in the field - Highlights areas for future investigation
Author : Andrew P. Hendry
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 410 pages
File Size : 14,26 MB
Release : 2020-06-09
Category : Science
ISBN : 0691204179
In recent years, scientists have realized that evolution can occur on timescales much shorter than the 'long lapse of ages' emphasized by Darwin - in fact, evolutionary change is occurring all around us all the time. This work provides an authoritative and accessible introduction to eco-evolutionary dynamics, a cutting-edge new field that seeks to unify evolution and ecology into a common conceptual framework focusing on rapid and dynamic environmental and evolutionary change.
Author : Martin A. Nowak
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 390 pages
File Size : 25,71 MB
Release : 2006-09-29
Category : Science
ISBN : 0674417755
At a time of unprecedented expansion in the life sciences, evolution is the one theory that transcends all of biology. Any observation of a living system must ultimately be interpreted in the context of its evolution. Evolutionary change is the consequence of mutation and natural selection, which are two concepts that can be described by mathematical equations. Evolutionary Dynamics is concerned with these equations of life. In this book, Martin A. Nowak draws on the languages of biology and mathematics to outline the mathematical principles according to which life evolves. His work introduces readers to the powerful yet simple laws that govern the evolution of living systems, no matter how complicated they might seem. Evolution has become a mathematical theory, Nowak suggests, and any idea of an evolutionary process or mechanism should be studied in the context of the mathematical equations of evolutionary dynamics. His book presents a range of analytical tools that can be used to this end: fitness landscapes, mutation matrices, genomic sequence space, random drift, quasispecies, replicators, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, games in finite and infinite populations, evolutionary graph theory, games on grids, evolutionary kaleidoscopes, fractals, and spatial chaos. Nowak then shows how evolutionary dynamics applies to critical real-world problems, including the progression of viral diseases such as AIDS, the virulence of infectious agents, the unpredictable mutations that lead to cancer, the evolution of altruism, and even the evolution of human language. His book makes a clear and compelling case for understanding every living system—and everything that arises as a consequence of living systems—in terms of evolutionary dynamics.
Author : Douglas W. Morris
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 281 pages
File Size : 32,71 MB
Release : 2011-07-14
Category : Nature
ISBN : 0198568797
This book provides a perspective on adaptive evolution.
Author : Beata Ujvari
Publisher : Academic Press
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 32,3 MB
Release : 2017-02-08
Category : Medical
ISBN : 0128043806
Ecology and Evolution of Cancer is a timely work outlining ideas that not only represent a substantial and original contribution to the fields of evolution, ecology, and cancer, but also goes beyond by connecting the interfaces of these disciplines. This work engages the expertise of a multidisciplinary research team to collate and review the latest knowledge and developments in this exciting research field. The evolutionary perspective of cancer has gained significant international recognition and interest, which is fully understandable given that somatic cellular selection and evolution are elegant explanations for carcinogenesis. Cancer is now generally accepted to be an evolutionary and ecological process with complex interactions between tumor cells and their environment sharing many similarities with organismal evolution. As a critical contribution to this field of research the book is important and relevant for the applications of evolutionary biology to understand the origin of cancers, to control neoplastic progression, and to prevent therapeutic failures. - Covers all aspects of the evolution of cancer, appealing to researchers seeking to understand its origins and effects of treatments on its progression, as well as to lecturers in evolutionary medicine - Functions as both an introduction to cancer and evolution and a review of the current research on this burgeoning, exciting field, presented by an international group of leading editors and contributors - Improves understanding of the origin and the evolution of cancer, aiding efforts to determine how this disease interferes with biotic interactions that govern ecosystems - Highlights research that intends to apply evolutionary principles to help predict emergence and metastatic progression with the aim of improving therapies
Author : Mark A. McPeek
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 329 pages
File Size : 12,19 MB
Release : 2017-08-29
Category : Science
ISBN : 0691088772
Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Ecological Opportunities, Communities, and Evolution -- 2. The Community of Ecological Opportunities -- 3. Evolving in the Community -- 4. New Species for the Community -- 5. Differentiating in the Community -- 6. Moving among Communities -- 7. Which Ways Forward? -- Literature Cited -- Index
Author : Mark Vellend
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 41,66 MB
Release : 2020-09-15
Category : Science
ISBN : 0691208999
A plethora of different theories, models, and concepts make up the field of community ecology. Amid this vast body of work, is it possible to build one general theory of ecological communities? What other scientific areas might serve as a guiding framework? As it turns out, the core focus of community ecology—understanding patterns of diversity and composition of biological variants across space and time—is shared by evolutionary biology and its very coherent conceptual framework, population genetics theory. The Theory of Ecological Communities takes this as a starting point to pull together community ecology's various perspectives into a more unified whole. Mark Vellend builds a theory of ecological communities based on four overarching processes: selection among species, drift, dispersal, and speciation. These are analogues of the four central processes in population genetics theory—selection within species, drift, gene flow, and mutation—and together they subsume almost all of the many dozens of more specific models built to describe the dynamics of communities of interacting species. The result is a theory that allows the effects of many low-level processes, such as competition, facilitation, predation, disturbance, stress, succession, colonization, and local extinction to be understood as the underpinnings of high-level processes with widely applicable consequences for ecological communities. Reframing the numerous existing ideas in community ecology, The Theory of Ecological Communities provides a new way for thinking about biological composition and diversity.
Author : Hugo van den Berg
Publisher : IOP Publishing Limited
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 31,21 MB
Release : 2015
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780750310956
Written for researchers and postgraduate students with a background in physics or applied mathematics and a desire to apply their skills to problems in the life sciences, this beautifully illustrated and stimulating book develops an understanding of the gene-to-trait problem in the context of evolutionary dynamics, from the modern perspective of integrative biology. The gene-to-trait problem resides at the heart of a great many questions in biology. The author presents both elementary and advanced material in a way that brings out how this gene-to-trait problem is treated in the contexts of bioinformatics and evolutionary dynamics. Key ideas and techniques that underlie some of the most-used bioinformatics methods are discussed in an integrative context and a wide range of examples of mathematical models of living things is developed in an evolutionary framework.
Author : Andrew Dobson
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 412 pages
File Size : 16,31 MB
Release : 2020-06-02
Category : Science
ISBN : 0691199833
"This volume provides a series of essays on open questions in ecology with the overarching goal being to outline to the most important, most interesting or most fundamental problems in ecology that need to be addressed. The contributions span ecological subfields, from behavioral ecology and population ecology to disease ecology and conservation and range in tone from the technical to more personal meditations on the state of the field. Many of the chapters start or end in moments of genuine curiosity, like one which takes up the question of why the world is green or another which asks what might come of a thought experiment in which we "turn-off" evolution entirely"--
Author : Aaron M. Ellison
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 338 pages
File Size : 38,83 MB
Release : 2021-08-03
Category : Science
ISBN : 0691172706
"Scale - the understanding of ecological phenomena through levels of biological organization across time and space - is one of most important concepts in ecology. It is often challenging for ecologists to find systems that lend themselves to study across scales; however, Sarracenia, a pitcher plant indigenous to the eastern United States, is unique because it can be studied at a hierarchy of scales: individuals, communities, and whole ecosystems. Ecologists Aaron Ellison and Nicolas Gotelli have studied Sarracenia for decades and, in this book, they synthesize their research and show how this system can inform the broad and challenging question of scaling in ecology. The authors' goal is to deepen the current understanding of major ecological processes, and how they operate across scales"--
