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Annelids (the segmented worms) exist in a remarkably diverse range of mostly marine but also freshwater and terrestrial habitats, varying greatly in size and form. This text provides. This text begins with an introduction to the phylum and an outline of annelid taxonomy. The book describes their collection and the methods to ensure their optimal preservation, and provides an overview of anatomy with its relevant terminology. It includes the latest molecular phylogenomic evidence and is organised based on a new, robust phylogenetic hypothesis. It looks at groups which include Clitellata (comprising more than a third of total annelid diversity), Sipuncula, and Thalassematidae (formerly Echiura). It reflects the enormous amount of research on these organisms that has burgeoned since the millennium, principally due to their use as model organisms to address wider and more general evolutionary and ecological questions.

Today, beavers are represented by two species, the Eurasian beaver and the North American beaver. Though these are the last remaining representatives of a once much larger consortium of animals, they have played a significant role in human history and dominated wetland ecology in the northern hemisphere. Their behaviour and ecology both fascinate and perhaps even infuriate, but seemingly they never fail to amaze. This comprehensive text serves to go beyond the natural history of these species, also describing their impacts on humans, conflict mitigation, animal husbandry, and conservation. This practical and accessible text incorporates some of the latest scientific findings, whilst setting the background of the broad depth of knowledge on beavers. The recovery and active restoration of both species has emerged following relentless persecution to the verge of extinction, a major conservation success story. Now can perhaps be described as the new dawn of the beaver, where more than ever its landscape-scale impacts, such as potential for water resource management, are being increasingly recognized.

Loss of biodiversity is among the greatest problems facing the world today. Conservation and the Genomics of Populations gives a comprehensive overview of the essential background, concepts, and tools needed to understand how genetic information can be used to conserve species threatened with extinction, and to manage species of ecological or commercial importance. New molecular techniques, statistical methods, and computer programs, genetic principles, and methods are becoming increasingly useful in the conservation of biological diversity. Using a balance of data and theory, coupled with basic and applied research examples, this book examines genetic and phenotypic variation in natural populations, the principles and mechanisms of evolutionary change, the interpretation of genetic data from natural populations, and how these can be applied to conservation. The book includes examples from plants, animals, and microbes in wild and captive populations. This third edition has been thoroughly revised to include advances in genomics and contains new chapters on population genomics, genetic monitoring, and conservation genetics in practice, as well as new sections on climate change, emerging diseases, metagenomics, and more. More than one-third of the references in this edition were published after the previous edition. Each of the 24 chapters and the Appendix end with a Guest Box written by an expert who provides an example of the principles presented in the chapter from their own work. This book is essential for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of conservation genetics, natural resource management, and conservation biology, as well as professional conservation biologists and policy-makers working for wildlife and habitat management agencies. Much of the book will also interest nonprofessionals who are curious about the role of genetics in conservation and management of wild and captive populations.

The Dharma in DNA has three objectives: (1) to share the rich but underappreciated history of biology–Buddhism intersections and surprising harmonies between the two traditions, (2) to evaluate Buddhist teachings from a scientific perspective using DNA as the focus of study, and (3) to propose a new approach to science, Bodhi science, as an ethical and operational framework for conducting Buddhist wisdom–guided science and preventing pseudoscience. An interwoven side project examines the life journey of the author, a professor of genetics and father in a transracial adoptive family, who questions the apparent paradox of his fascination with DNA in the lab but disinterest in passing on his own DNA. Early book chapters present the core teachings and diversifications of Buddhism over the last twenty-five centuries. Subsequent chapters share stories of biology–Buddhism interactions, situated in the colonial contexts; examples derive from early twentieth-century Sri Lanka and Japan, and contemporary activities of the Dalai Lama and Western biological scholars. The hypothesis-guided analysis of Buddhist principles and DNA then begins, touring through classical genetic research alongside modern postgenomic insights. The investigation reveals strong support for three core Buddhist concepts—anitya (impermanence), anatman (non-self), and pratitysamutpada (mutual cause and effect)—as applied to DNA. Bodhi science is proposed as a new mode of scientific inquiry rooted in Buddhist teachings. The approach is based on four qualities: selflessness, detachment, awareness, and compassion. Bodhi science provides a path to strong science rooted in logic-based Buddhist ethics, and it helps scientists avoid the deceptive and damaging waters of pseudoscience.

The understanding of arthropod phylogeny and evolution in the past three decades has undergone major changes. These have arisen from new sources of data applicable across several fields of study. Developments within ontogenetic studies not only in regard to gross patterns of embryology but also regarding a revolution in the application of development genetics continue to generate remarkable insights into crustaceomorph evolution. Phylogeny techniques of analysis and new sources of data derived from molecular sequencing have forced consideration of new hypotheses concerning the interrelationships of all the pancrustaceans, both crustaceomorphs and Hexapoda. Furthermore, it is not uncommon that this multiplicity of sources for new data from opposing research teams can result in different hypotheses for phylogenetic relationships. This situation should not be treated as a defect, or an impediment, but rather as a source for multiple alternative hypotheses—the bases for further data gathering and analyses. Also, one should never view consideration of fossils as a vexing source of noise. Here, too, consideration of multiple hypotheses has proven useful. Often, fossils can produce deeper understanding of the paleodiversity of body plans. Nevertheless, some fossil groups still remain as enigmas, such as Thylacocephala. But even fossils incompletely understood can help fill in gaps in knowledge of paleobiodiversity that can prove useful, for example, in analyzing the the origin and early evolution of Hexapoda. Old ideas about pancrustacean evolution have served the field well, but results derived from all data inputs should be embraced.

Beginning in the 1970s, several scientific breakthroughs promised to transform the creation of new medicines. As investors sought to capitalize on these Nobel Prize–winning discoveries, the biotech industry grew to thousands of small companies around the world. Each sought to emulate what the major pharmaceutical companies had been doing for a century or more, but without the advantages of scale, scope, experience, and massive resources. How could a large collection of small companies, most with fewer than fifty employees, compete in one of the world’s most breathtakingly expensive and highly regulated industries? This book shows how biotech companies have met the challenge by creating nearly 40% more of the most important treatments for unmet medical needs. Moreover, they have done so with much lower overall costs. The book focuses on both the companies themselves and the broader biotech ecosystem that supports them. Its portrait of the crucial roles played by academic research, venture capital, contract research organizations, the capital markets, and pharmaceutical companies shows how a supportive environment enabled the entrepreneurial biotech industry to create novel medicines with unprecedented efficiency. In doing so, it also offers insights for any industry seeking to innovate in uncertain and ambiguous conditions. Looking to the future, it concludes that biomedical research will continue to be most effective in the hands of a large group of small companies as long as national healthcare policies allow the rest of the ecosystem to continue to thrive.

Emerging infectious diseases pose an increasingly serious threat to a number of endangered or sensitive species. Despite the significant impact of pathogens on conservation, no single book has yet integrated the theoretical principles underlying disease transmission with the practical health considerations for helping wildlife professionals and conservation biologists to manage disease outbreaks and conserve biodiversity. This novel and accessible textbook starts with a foundational section focusing on the role of pathogens in natural ecosystems, the dynamics of transmission in different environments, and the factors driving wildlife disease outbreaks. It then moves on to far more applied issues concerned with the acquisition of field data including sampling, experimental design, and analysis, as well as diagnostic analyses in both the laboratory and field. Guidelines for effective modeling and data analysis follow, before a final section is devoted to disease prevention and control including the prevention of novel outbreaks, the use of diseases as biocontrol agents, and the associated issues of ethics, public communication, and outreach.

Many invertebrates are serious pests of agriculture (e.g., mites and locusts), vectors of disease (e.g., mosquitoes and aquatic snails) and venomous (e.g., scorpions), whilst others are beneficial to humans as pollinators, food sources, and detritivores. Despite their obvious ecological, medical, and economic importance, this is the first comprehensive review of invertebrate diseases to be available within a single volume. Concurrent molecular and bioinformatics developments over the last decade have catalyzed a renaissance in invertebrate pathology. High-throughput sequencing, handheld diagnostic kits and the move to new technologies have rapidly increased our understanding of invertebrate diseases, generating a large volume of fundamental and applied research on the topic. An overview is now timely, and this authoritative reference assembles an international team of the leading specialists in the field to review the main diseases and pathologic manifestations of all the major invertebrate groups. Each chapter adopts a common plan in terms of its scope and approach to achieve a succinct and coherent synthesis.

In the late 1990s, the first complete sequences of two bacterial genomes were published. From the analysis of the sequence data, it became possible to elucidate all the biochemical reactions that these bacteria could undertake and all the molecules that they could synthesize, many of which had hitherto been unknown. Now that hundreds of microbial genomes have been sequenced, we can decipher those biochemical features that make an organism a successful pathogen and recognize common strategies for overcoming host defences. We also can get insights to how each pathogen evolved. The objective of this book is to put the new sequence-derived information in the context of the natural history of the organisms. That is, to tell a story and get a sense of how each organism evolved, what it can do, and how it interacts with its environment. Each chapter is devoted to a different pathogen, be it viral, bacterial or eukaryotic, and describes how they infect plants and animals but particularly humans.

“Engineering” has firmly taken root in the entangled bank of biology even as proposals to remake the living world have sent tendrils in every direction, and at every scale. Nature Remade explores these complex prospects from a resolutely historical approach, tracing cases across the decades of the long twentieth century. These essays span the many levels at which life has been engineered: molecule, cell, organism, population, ecosystem, and planet. From the cloning of agricultural crops and the artificial feeding of silkworms, to biomimicry, genetic engineering, and terraforming, Nature Remade affirms the centrality of engineering in its various forms for understanding and imagining modern life. Organized around three themes—control and reproduction, knowing as making, and envisioning—the chapters in Nature Remade chart different means, scales, and consequences of intervening and reimagining nature.

Responsible Conduct of Research provides an overview of ethical, legal, and social issues in scientific research for science students, trainees, and professional scientists. Written by two leading scholars in the field of research ethics, one with a background in natural science and the other with a background in philosophy and law, the book incorporates insights from these diverse disciplines throughout the text. The book provides in-depth analyses of a wide array of topics, including ethical theory and decision-making, misconduct, questionable research practices, research record-keeping, data sharing, data auditing, reproducibility, authorship, publication, peer review, intellectual property, conflict of interest, mentoring, safe research environment, animal experimentation, research with human subjects, and social responsibility. The book also includes interesting case studies and provocative questions at the end of each chapter that can serve as a basis for further analysis and discussion. The concluding chapter of the book describes some steps that researchers, institutional officials, government agencies, and scientific organizations can take to promote ethical conduct in scientific research. The 4th edition of Responsible Conduct of Research includes updated references and discussions of new and evolving topics, such as digital image manipulation, text recycling (sometimes called self-plagiarism), retractions, publication on pre-print servers, sexual and other forms of harassment, research with human biological samples, revisions to the Common Rule for research with human subjects, dual use research, the COVID-19 pandemic, providing science advice, and interactions with the media.