About this book
The imprint of evolution permeates the life sciences, from the history of life captured in the fossil record to the inner workings of cells, the dynamics of development, and the structure of the genetic code. This brings into focus a challenge for biologists – how to be adequately conversant in the broad and diverse field of Evolution? The Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Biology offers a solution: a carefully curated collection of chapters covering all key topics in the field, allowing readers to apply evolutionary thinking to their specific areas of interest.
This encyclopedia includes introductory chapters covering fundamental topics, mostly designed for students, and more focused chapters serving more experienced professionals. Each chapter links concepts to specific systems and examples, with a set chapter structure to ensure ease of navigation across the volumes. New or expanded topics in the second edition include human evolution (e.g., cultural evolution, human adaptation, language), palaeontology (Eoarchean and the origins of life, mass extinction events, punctuated equilibrium), evolution of behaviour (game theory, kin selection, optimality), epigenetics, and metagenomics (human microbiomes, diversification of viruses). This essential resource is sure to engage with a broad and diverse readership across the educational hierarchy, showing the central position occupied by evolutionary biology in the life sciences.
- Revised and expanded, this new edition provides the most up-to-date resource spanning the breadth of evolutionary biology
- Serves an audience with diverse backgrounds, allowing readers to apply evolutionary thinking to their specific areas of interest in the life sciences
- New and expanded areas include human evolution, palaeontology, evolution of behaviour and metagenomics
- Chapters written by experts in the field link fundamental concepts to examples and applications
- Use of a common chapter template and unified terminology ensures ease of navigation for readers at all levels of expertise
Contents
1. Molecular Evolution and Population Genetics (including genomics and other basic topics in evolutionary genetics)
2. Evolutionary Ecology (including behavioral ecology, coevolution, and biogeography)
3. Phylogenetics and Speciation
4. Microevolution and Adaptation
5. Macroevolution and Paleontology (including origins of life, evolution of development and evolutionary diversification)
Customer Reviews
Biography
Claudia Russo is a Professor of Genetics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). She has a degree in Ecology and a PhD in Genetics. During her PhD, she worked with Masatoshi Nei at Pennsylvania State University as a visiting scholar. She is currently Head of the Genetics Graduate Program at UFRJ. In 2001, she was part of the team that founded the Graduate Program in Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology at UFRJ and served as its Head for two terms. Seventeen alumni from her group hold permanent positions as faculty members in Brazil and abroad. Since 2012 she has been on the editorial board of the top journal in the field, Molecular Biology and Evolution, and has now been appointed as the journal's Editor in Chief, alongside Brandon Gaut, making her the first ever non-American to lead the journal. She was a section editor for the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Biology.
Jason Wolf is a Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at the University of Bath, UK. He received a PhD from the University of Kentucky and was a postdoctoral researcher at Indiana University and at Washington University. He has held faculty positions at the University of Tennessee and the University of Manchester, and a Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. He is currently Editor in Chief for Evolution, and is a member of the Genetics Society Committee. He has previously served as Chief Editor for Frontiers in Genetic Architecture and as an Associate Editor for Genetics. He has edited two books and served as a section editor for the first edition of the Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Biology. He is a winner of the Dobzhansky Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution, a Young Investigator's Prize from the American Society of Naturalists and the Scientific Medal from the Zoological Society of London.
