United States
£ GBP
This major new title is a comprehensive review of speciation and its consequences in birds. The book covers a broad range of areas, from genetics to biogeography and from phylogeny to ecology. It will be of interest to geneticists, ecologists, animal behaviourists and anyone with an interest in bird speciation.
"As the literature in any field explodes there is simultaneously an increasing need for synthesis yet an increasing difficulty in achieving it. This is certainly true for the ever-popular subject of ornithology. Trevor Price takes up the challenge to explain how birds speciate, and succeeds magnificently. It is a comprehensive review of all the major ideas, beautifully illustrated with pictures of birds. More than 1300 works are cited, but more impressive is the range of subjects, from genetics to biogeography, from the reconstruction of phylogeny to ecology and the causes of reproductive isolation, all discussed with admirable clarity. If they were alive today Ernst Mayr would bestow patrician approval on this work of scholarship, and Theodosius Dobzhansky would applaud from the side-lines."
- Peter R. Grant, Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology, Princeton University, and the author of Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches
"Insightful and original work, comprehensive and up to date" - Robert Payne
"Demonstrates the influential contributions, indeed special role, that studies of birds continue to make to our understanding of speciation." - Loren H Rieseberg, Science Magazine, 12 October 2007
1 Introduction 2 Geography and Ecology 3 Geographical Variation 4 Parapatric Speciation 5 Ecological Speciation 6 Ecological Controls and Speciation on Continents 7 Behavior and Ecology 8 Geographical Isolation and the Causes of Island Endemism 9 Social Selection 10 Social Selection and the Evolution of Song 11 Divergence in Response to Increased Sexual Selection 12 Social Selection and Ecology 13 Species Recognition 14 Mate Choice and the End of Speciation 15 Hybrid Zones 16 Genetic Incompatibility 17 Conclusions
This is an insightful and original work, comprehensive and up to date, and covers many interesting ideas and is particularly good at the inclusion of recent genetic information on the process of speciation in birds. It will be the best work available on its topic, the behavioral and genetic causes and consequences of speciation in birds Robert Payne, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology
