Biology

Adapting to a Changing Environment: Confronting the Consequences of Climate Change

Tim R. McClanahan, Joshua Cinner

Societies must choose how they wish to deal with climate change. Not doing anything or pursuing ‘business as usual’ is likely to lead down a path that will have devastating consequences ... More

Societies must choose how they wish to deal with climate change. Not doing anything or pursuing ‘business as usual’ is likely to lead down a path that will have devastating consequences for many people, especially the world’s poor. Using a focal lens of coral reef fisheries, upon which millions of people depend on for their livelihood, this book provides a tool box of options for confronting the consequences of climate change through building local-scale adaptive capacity in societies and improving the condition of the natural resources. Building adaptive capacity will require strengthening appropriate aspects of a society’s flexibility, assets, learning and social organizations. They ways of doing this are diverse and will, of course, depend on existing local capacities and needs. Improving the condition of resources tends to require restricting or limiting society’s actions. These two broad concepts, of building social capacities and limiting certain types of resource use, interact in complicated ways, requiring coupled actions. One of the central themes of this book is that adaptation solutions are context dependent, determined in part by aspects of local resource conditions, adaptive capacity, and exposure to climate change impacts, but also by people’s history, culture, and aspirations. This book develops a framework to help provide governments, scientists, managers, and donors with critical information about the local context and develop nuanced actions that reflect these local conditions. This information can help to identify key opportunities and narrow the range of potential adaptation options that may be suitable for a particular location. Less

Aging of the Genome: The dual role of DNA in life and death

Jan Vijg

Aging has long since been ascribed to the gradual accumulation of DNA mutations in the genome of somatic cells. However, it is only recently that the necessary sophisticated technology ... More

Aging has long since been ascribed to the gradual accumulation of DNA mutations in the genome of somatic cells. However, it is only recently that the necessary sophisticated technology has been developed to begin testing this theory and its consequences. This book critically reviews the concept of genomic instability as a possible universal cause of aging in the context of a new, holistic understanding of genome functioning in complex organisms resulting from recent advances in functional genomics and systems biology. It provides a synthesis of current research, as well as a look ahead to the design of strategies to retard or reverse the deleterious effects of aging. This is particularly important in a time when we are urgently trying to unravel the genetic component of aging-related diseases. Moreover, there is a growing public recognition of the imperative of understanding more about the underlying biology of aging, driven by continuing demographic change. Less

Allee Effects in Ecology and Conservation

Franck Courchamp, Ludek Berec, Joanna Gascoigne

Allee effects are broadly defined as a decline in individual fitness at low population size or density, that can result in critical population thresholds below which populations crash to ... More

Allee effects are broadly defined as a decline in individual fitness at low population size or density, that can result in critical population thresholds below which populations crash to extinction. As such, they are very relevant to many conservation programmes, where scientists and managers are often working with populations that have been reduced to low densities or small numbers. There are a variety of mechanisms that can create Allee effects, including mating systems, predation, environmental modification, and social interactions among others. The abrupt and unpredicted collapses of many exploited populations is just one illustration of the need to bring Allee effects to the forefront of conservation and management strategies. This book provides an overview of the topic, collating and integrating a widely dispersed literature from various fields: marine and terrestrial, plant and animal, theoretical and empirical, academic and applied. Less

The Amboseli Elephants: A Long-Term Perspective on a Long-Lived Mammal

Cynthia J. Moss, Harvey Croze, Phyllis C. Lee (eds)

Elephants have fascinated humans for millennia. Their ivory has been sought after and treasured in most cultures, and they have delighted zoo and circus audiences worldwide for ... More

Elephants have fascinated humans for millennia. Their ivory has been sought after and treasured in most cultures, and they have delighted zoo and circus audiences worldwide for centuries. But it was not until the second half of the twentieth century that people started to take an interest in elephants in the wild, and some of the most important studies of these intelligent giants have been conducted at Amboseli National Park in Kenya. This book provides a summation of what has been learned from the Amboseli Elephant Research Project—the longest continuously running elephant research project in the world. It presents more than three decades of uninterrupted study of over 2,500 individual elephants, from newborn calves to adult bulls to old matriarchs in their 60s. Chapters explore such topics as elephant ecosystems, genetics, communication, social behavior, and reproduction, as well as new developments from the study of elephant minds and cognition. The book closes with a view to the future, making arguments for the ethical treatment of elephants and suggestions to aid in their conservation. Less

American Bison: A Natural History

Dale Lott

Jan van Wagtendonk, Kevin Shaffer (eds)

This book combines the latest scientific information and one man's personal experience in an homage to one of the most magnificent animals to have roamed America's vast, vanished ... More

This book combines the latest scientific information and one man's personal experience in an homage to one of the most magnificent animals to have roamed America's vast, vanished grasslands. The book relates what is known about this iconic animal's life in the wild and its troubled history with humans. The book takes us on a journey into the bison's past and shares a compelling vision for its future, offering along the way a valuable introduction to North American prairie ecology. The book acquaints us with the social life and physiology of the bison, sharing stories about its impressive physical prowess and fascinating relationships. Describing the entire grassland community in which the bison live, it talks about the wolves, pronghorn, prairie dogs, grizzly bears, and other animals and plants, detailing the interdependent relationships among these inhabitants of a lost landscape. The book also traces the long and dramatic relationship between the bison and Native Americans, and gives a surprising look at the history of the hide hunts that delivered the coup de grace to the already dwindling bison population in a few short years. This book gives us a peek at the rich and unique ways of life that evolved in the heart of America. The book also dismantles many of the myths we have created about these ways of life, and about the bison in particular, to reveal the animal itself: ruminating, reproducing, and rutting in its full glory. This portrait of the bison ultimately becomes a plea to conserve its wildness and an eloquent meditation on the importance of the wild in our lives. Less

Amphibian Declines: The Conservation Status of United States Species

Michael Lannoo (ed.)

This book documents a major environmental crisis: rapidly declining amphibian populations and the developmental problems that are increasingly prevalent within many amphibian species. ... More

This book documents a major environmental crisis: rapidly declining amphibian populations and the developmental problems that are increasingly prevalent within many amphibian species. Horror stories on this topic have been featured in the scientific and popular press over the past fifteen years, invariably asking what amphibian declines are telling us about the state of the environment. Are declines harbingers of devastated ecosystems or simply weird reflections of a peculiar amphibian world? This compendium — presenting new data, reviews of current literature, and comprehensive species accounts — reinforces what scientists have begun to suspect: that amphibians are a lens through which the state of the environment can be viewed more clearly. And, that the view is alarming and presages serious concerns for all life, including that of our own species. The first part of this work consists of more than fifty essays covering topics from the causes of amphibian population declines to conservation, surveys and monitoring, and education. The second part consists of species accounts describing the life history and natural history of every known amphibian species in the United States. Less

Amphibians and Reptiles of Baja California, Including Its Pacific Islands and the Islands in the Sea of Cortes

L. Grismer, Jerry Powell

The Baja California peninsula is home to many forms of life found nowhere else on earth. This, combined with the peninsula's rugged and inaccessible terrain, has made the area one of the ... More

The Baja California peninsula is home to many forms of life found nowhere else on earth. This, combined with the peninsula's rugged and inaccessible terrain, has made the area one of the last true biological frontiers of North America. This book is a guide to the amphibians and reptiles of a fascinating and remote region. The culmination of a quarter century of fieldwork on the Baja peninsula and an exploration of more than one hundred of its islands in the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortés, this book gives information on the identification, distribution, natural history, and taxonomy of each species of amphibian and reptile found there. Preliminary accounts of the life history of many of the salamanders, frogs, toads, turtles, lizards, and snakes are reported here for the first time, and several species that were almost unknown to science are illustrated. The book also contains new data on species distribution and on the effect of the isolated landscape of the peninsula and its islands on the evolutionary process. Less

Ancestral Sequence Reconstruction

David A Liberles (ed.)

Ancestral sequence reconstruction is a technique of growing importance in molecular evolutionary biology and comparative genomics. As a powerful tool for testing evolutionary and ... More

Ancestral sequence reconstruction is a technique of growing importance in molecular evolutionary biology and comparative genomics. As a powerful tool for testing evolutionary and ecological hypotheses, as well as uncovering the link between sequence and molecular phenotype, there are potential applications in almost all fields of applied molecular biology. This book starts with a historical overview of the field, before discussing the potential applications in drug discovery and the pharmaceutical industry. This is followed by a section on computational methodology, which provides a detailed discussion of the available methods for reconstructing ancestral sequences (including their advantages, disadvantages, and potential pitfalls). Purely computational applications of the technique are then covered, including whole proteome reconstruction. Further chapters provide a detailed discussion on taking computationally reconstructed sequences and synthesizing them in the laboratory. The book concludes with a description of the scientific questions where experimental ancestral sequence reconstruction has been utilized to provide insights and inform future research. Less

Animal Architecture

Mike Hansell

Construction behaviour occurs across the entire spectrum of the animal kingdom and affects the survival of both builders and other organisms associated with them. This book provides a ... More

Construction behaviour occurs across the entire spectrum of the animal kingdom and affects the survival of both builders and other organisms associated with them. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the biology of animal building. It recognizes three broad categories of built structure: homes, traps, and courtship displays. Even though some of these structures are complex and very large, the behaviour required to build them is generally simple and the anatomy for building unspecialized. Standardization of building materials helps to keep building repertoires simple, while self-organizing effects help create complexity. In a case-study approach to function, insects demonstrate how homes can remain operational while they grow, spiderwebs illustrate mechanical design, and the displays of bowerbirds raise the possibility of persuasion through design rather than just decoration. Studies of the costs to builders provide evidence of optimal designs and of trade-offs with other life history traits. As ecosystem engineers, the influence of builders is extensive and their effect is generally to enhance biodiversity through niche construction. Animal builders can therefore represent model species for the study of the emerging subject of environmental inheritance. Building, and in particular building with silk, has been demonstrated to have important evolutionary consequences. Less

Animal Evolution: Genomes, Fossils, and Trees

Maximilian J. Telford, D.T.J. Littlewood (eds)

Animal life, now and over the past half billion years, is incredibly diverse. Describing and understanding the evolution of this diversity of body plans — from vertebrates such as humans ... More

Animal life, now and over the past half billion years, is incredibly diverse. Describing and understanding the evolution of this diversity of body plans — from vertebrates such as humans and fish to the numerous invertebrate groups including sponges, insects, molluscs, and the many groups of worms — is a major goal of evolutionary biology. This book adopts a modern, integrated approach to describe how current molecular genetic techniques and disciplines as diverse as palaeontology, embryology, and genomics have been combined, resulting in a dramatic renaissance in the study of animal evolution. The last decade has seen growing interest in evolutionary biology fuelled by a wealth of data from molecular biology. Modern phylogenies integrating evidence from molecules, embryological data, and morphology of living and fossil taxa provide a wide consensus of the major branching patterns of the tree of life; moreover, the links between phenotype and genotype are increasingly well understood. This has resulted in a reliable tree of relationships that has been widely accepted and has spawned numerous new and exciting questions that require a reassessment of the origins and radiation of animal life. The focus of this volume is at the level of major animal groups, the morphological innovations that define them, and the mechanisms of change to their embryology that have resulted in their evolution. Current research themes and future prospects are highlighted including phylogeny reconstruction, comparative developmental biology, the value of different sources of data and the importance of fossils, homology assessment, character evolution, phylogeny of major groups of animals, and genome evolution. These topics are integrated in the light of a 'new animal phylogeny', to provide fresh insights into the patterns and processes of animal evolution. Less