Andreas Schmidt-Rhaesa
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198566687
- eISBN:
- 9780191718007
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198566687.001.0001
- Subject:
- Biology, Evolutionary Biology / Genetics
The field of systematics has developed remarkably over the last few decades. A multitude of new methods and contributions from diverse biological fields — including molecular genetics and ...
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The field of systematics has developed remarkably over the last few decades. A multitude of new methods and contributions from diverse biological fields — including molecular genetics and developmental biology — have provided a wealth of phylogenetic hypotheses, some confirming traditional views and others contradicting them. There is now sufficient evidence to draw up a ‘tree of life’ based on fairly robust phylogenetic relationships. This book aims to apply these new phylogenies to an evolutionary interpretation of animal organ systems and body architecture. Organs do not appear suddenly during evolution: instead they are composed of far simpler structures. In some cases, it is even possible to trace particular molecules or physiological pathways as far back as pre-animal history. What emerges is a fascinating picture, showing how animals have combined ancestral and new elements in novel ways to form constantly changing responses to environmental requirements. The book starts with a general overview of animal systematics to set the framework for the discussion of organ system evolution. The chapters deal with the general organization, integument, musculature, nervous system, sensory structures, body cavities, excretory, respiratory and circulatory organs, the intestinal and reproductive system, and spermatozoa. Each organ system is presented with its function, the diversity of forms that are realized among metazoan animals, and the reconstruction of its evolution.Less
The field of systematics has developed remarkably over the last few decades. A multitude of new methods and contributions from diverse biological fields — including molecular genetics and developmental biology — have provided a wealth of phylogenetic hypotheses, some confirming traditional views and others contradicting them. There is now sufficient evidence to draw up a ‘tree of life’ based on fairly robust phylogenetic relationships. This book aims to apply these new phylogenies to an evolutionary interpretation of animal organ systems and body architecture. Organs do not appear suddenly during evolution: instead they are composed of far simpler structures. In some cases, it is even possible to trace particular molecules or physiological pathways as far back as pre-animal history. What emerges is a fascinating picture, showing how animals have combined ancestral and new elements in novel ways to form constantly changing responses to environmental requirements. The book starts with a general overview of animal systematics to set the framework for the discussion of organ system evolution. The chapters deal with the general organization, integument, musculature, nervous system, sensory structures, body cavities, excretory, respiratory and circulatory organs, the intestinal and reproductive system, and spermatozoa. Each organ system is presented with its function, the diversity of forms that are realized among metazoan animals, and the reconstruction of its evolution.
Andrew Hamilton (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780520276581
- eISBN:
- 9780520956759
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520276581.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Patterns in Nature is a collection of eleven new essays. The work is an attempt to articulate an intellectual agenda for the study of the conceptual foundations of systematics and taxonomy in a way ...
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Patterns in Nature is a collection of eleven new essays. The work is an attempt to articulate an intellectual agenda for the study of the conceptual foundations of systematics and taxonomy in a way that connects classification with larger historical themes in the biological sciences, including morphology, experimental and observational approaches, evolution, biogeography, debates over form and function, character transformation, and biodiversity. The volume has two overarching themes. The first is to throw light on the current state of systematics by understanding the details of its history and the history of closely related disciplines and debates. The second theme is to provide enough of the details about the chronology and changes in concepts and contexts that a new generation of researchers will have a framework for taking up questions. While evolutionary systematics represents an important chapter in the recent history of biology, the rise of cladistics in the 1970s and 1980s argues for attention to Willi Hennig and his forerunners, collaborators, interlocutors, and critics. In an attempt to fill in a largely unwritten history and a lacuna in the conceptual map of modern systematics, Patterns in Nature features discussions of the work of Adolf Naef, Walter Zimmermann, Leon Croizat, Lars Brundin, and Colin Patterson, among others. This book also asks after the future of systematics, with chapters that discuss some recent and new additions to theory and practice that technology has made possible.Less
Patterns in Nature is a collection of eleven new essays. The work is an attempt to articulate an intellectual agenda for the study of the conceptual foundations of systematics and taxonomy in a way that connects classification with larger historical themes in the biological sciences, including morphology, experimental and observational approaches, evolution, biogeography, debates over form and function, character transformation, and biodiversity. The volume has two overarching themes. The first is to throw light on the current state of systematics by understanding the details of its history and the history of closely related disciplines and debates. The second theme is to provide enough of the details about the chronology and changes in concepts and contexts that a new generation of researchers will have a framework for taking up questions. While evolutionary systematics represents an important chapter in the recent history of biology, the rise of cladistics in the 1970s and 1980s argues for attention to Willi Hennig and his forerunners, collaborators, interlocutors, and critics. In an attempt to fill in a largely unwritten history and a lacuna in the conceptual map of modern systematics, Patterns in Nature features discussions of the work of Adolf Naef, Walter Zimmermann, Leon Croizat, Lars Brundin, and Colin Patterson, among others. This book also asks after the future of systematics, with chapters that discuss some recent and new additions to theory and practice that technology has made possible.
Manfred D. Laubichler
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780520276581
- eISBN:
- 9780520956759
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520276581.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Homology, a central concept in comparative biology, has been variously understood over the last century. This chapter tracks several versions of homology over time and through the lens of the ...
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Homology, a central concept in comparative biology, has been variously understood over the last century. This chapter tracks several versions of homology over time and through the lens of the historical/mechanistic distinction one finds in Hans Spemann’s work in the early twentieth century. These various interpretations of homology are seen to converge again in the case of developmental evolution, where the differences between them, which have come from the rise of evolutionary biology in general and phylogenetic systematics in particular, again become both salient and informative.Less
Homology, a central concept in comparative biology, has been variously understood over the last century. This chapter tracks several versions of homology over time and through the lens of the historical/mechanistic distinction one finds in Hans Spemann’s work in the early twentieth century. These various interpretations of homology are seen to converge again in the case of developmental evolution, where the differences between them, which have come from the rise of evolutionary biology in general and phylogenetic systematics in particular, again become both salient and informative.
Quentin Wheeler and Andrew Hamilton
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780520276581
- eISBN:
- 9780520956759
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520276581.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The New Systematics, the New Taxonomy, and the Future of Biodiversity Studies This chapter places the future practice of taxonomy in its historical and conceptual context, asking what kinds of ...
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The New Systematics, the New Taxonomy, and the Future of Biodiversity Studies This chapter places the future practice of taxonomy in its historical and conceptual context, asking what kinds of technological investments make sense given taxonomy’s theoretical structure and the need for accelerating taxonomic studies. We defend the view that the theoretical and epistemological foundations of taxonomy point toward, rather than away from, the continued development of a new cyberinfrastructure that importantly includes morphology, even as molecular techniques become more common and more sophisticated. While we are excited and enthusiastic about developments in molecular systematics, we think comparative morphology should retain a central place in our collective attempt to understand life more fully. This is not just because of the pride of place morphology has in the history of natural history but because of what we understand the foundational ideas of contemporary taxonomy to require.Less
The New Systematics, the New Taxonomy, and the Future of Biodiversity Studies This chapter places the future practice of taxonomy in its historical and conceptual context, asking what kinds of technological investments make sense given taxonomy’s theoretical structure and the need for accelerating taxonomic studies. We defend the view that the theoretical and epistemological foundations of taxonomy point toward, rather than away from, the continued development of a new cyberinfrastructure that importantly includes morphology, even as molecular techniques become more common and more sophisticated. While we are excited and enthusiastic about developments in molecular systematics, we think comparative morphology should retain a central place in our collective attempt to understand life more fully. This is not just because of the pride of place morphology has in the history of natural history but because of what we understand the foundational ideas of contemporary taxonomy to require.
Thomas Leu
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- June 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198778264
- eISBN:
- 9780191823770
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198778264.003.0009
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Syntax and Morphology, Theoretical Linguistics
Assuming no homophony leads to analyses that are surprising from a traditional perspective. For instance, this chapter shows that German would have a morphosyntactically single same d- in dass ...
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Assuming no homophony leads to analyses that are surprising from a traditional perspective. For instance, this chapter shows that German would have a morphosyntactically single same d- in dass ‘that’, der ‘the’, jeder ’every’, etc. and a single same ein in ein ‘one’, mein ‘my’, kein ‘no', nein ‘no!’ etc. Based on the syntactic behaviour of d- and ein, respectively, and on a comparison with English and French counterparts, decomposing not into n-o-t and identifying -on in non ‘no!’ and mangeons ‘eat.1pl’ as the same morpheme, it argues that the surprising analysis may actually be correct. While linguists have recourse to comparative evidence, children do not. The chapter suggests that children would be helped in determining the identity of morphemes if they could rely on the absence of homophony, and proposes the homomorphemicity thesis as a property of UG, hence categorically disallowing homophony within certain syntactically defined lexical domains.Less
Assuming no homophony leads to analyses that are surprising from a traditional perspective. For instance, this chapter shows that German would have a morphosyntactically single same d- in dass ‘that’, der ‘the’, jeder ’every’, etc. and a single same ein in ein ‘one’, mein ‘my’, kein ‘no', nein ‘no!’ etc. Based on the syntactic behaviour of d- and ein, respectively, and on a comparison with English and French counterparts, decomposing not into n-o-t and identifying -on in non ‘no!’ and mangeons ‘eat.1pl’ as the same morpheme, it argues that the surprising analysis may actually be correct. While linguists have recourse to comparative evidence, children do not. The chapter suggests that children would be helped in determining the identity of morphemes if they could rely on the absence of homophony, and proposes the homomorphemicity thesis as a property of UG, hence categorically disallowing homophony within certain syntactically defined lexical domains.
