Selection: The Mechanism of Evolution

by Graham Bell

Overview

This book adopts a direct experimental approach to evolutionary questions, drawing predominantly from research on microbial systems. The focus is on processes and mechanisms, incorporating insights from remarkable recent advances in whole-genome sequencing, bioinformatics, environmental genomics, and developmental genetics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780412055218
Publisher:	Springer US
Publication date:	10/31/1996
Edition description:	1997
Pages:	699
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.36(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Graham Bell is a professor of biology at McGill University in Montreal. He has published many articles on ecology and evolution, and three books: the Masterpiece of Nature (1982), Sex and Death in Protozoa (1988) and Selection (1996).

Table of Contents

The second science xiii

1 Simple selection 1

2 The genetic and ecological context of selection 20

2.1 History, chance, and necessity 20

2.2 The rate of genetic deterioration 24

2.3 The rate of environmental deterioration 42

3 Natural selection in closed asexual populations 55

3.1 Microcosmologia 55

3.2 Sorting: selection of pre-existing variation 64

3.3 Purifying selection: maintaining adaptedness despite genetic deterioration 71

3.4 Directional selection: restoring adaptedness despite environmental deterioration 73

3.5 Successive substitution 91

3.6 Cumulative adaptation 95

3.7 Successive substitution at several loci 107

4 Prometheus Unbound: releasing the constraints on natural selection 130

4.1 Increasing the mutation rate 130

4.2 Horizontal transmission 134

4.3 Sex 136

4.4 Dispersal 156

5 Selection in multicellular organisms 162

5.1 Size matters 162

5.2 Reproductive allocation 166

5.3 Life histories 175

6 Artificial selection 186

6.1 Selection acting on quantitative variation 187

6.2 Generations 1-10: the short-term response 191

6.3 Generations 10-100: the limits to selection 199

6.4 Generations 100 up: new kinds of creatures 214

7 Natural selection in open populations 222

7.1 Fitness in natural populations 223

7.2 Phenotypic selection 231

7.3 Selection experiments in the field 252

7.4 Adaptation to the humanized landscape 254

7.5 The ghost of selection past 261

8 Adaptive radiation: diversity and specialization 265

8.1 Adaptive and non-adaptive radiation 265

8.2 G x E 266

8.3 Specialization and generalization 281

8.4 Opportunities in space: obligations in time 290

8.5Local adaptation 302

9 Autoselection: selfish genetic elements 308

9.1 Infection 309

9.2 Interference 322

9.3 Gonotaxis 326

10 Social selection 331

10.1 Selection within a single uniform population: density-dependent selection 331

10.2 Selection within a single diverse population: frequency-dependent selection 345

10.3 Social behaviour 352

10.4 Kin selection and group selection 366

11 Co-evolution 380

11.1 Rivals 380

11.2 Partners 385

11.3 Enemies 393

11.4 Ecosystems 408

12 Sexual selection 418

12.1 Evolution of sex 418

12.2 The alternation of generations 433

12.3 Gender 437

12.4 Beauty and the Beast 447

13 Speciation 462

13.1 Speciation and diversification 462

13.2 Experimental speciation 470

13.3 Emerging species 481

14 Epitome 492

References 500

Index 547

Editorial Reviews

Framing his arguments in terms of asexual, haploid microbes, Bell (genetics, McGill U.) explores this facet of biological inheritance. Types of selection studied include simple, single and multi-character, auto, social, and sexual. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

"An outstanding book belonging on every science shelf."—Choice, 2008 Vol. 45 No. 11

From the Publisher