DEVELOPMENTAL PLASTICITY AND EVOLUTION

by Mary Jane West-Eberhard

The first comprehensive synthesis on development and it applies to all aspects of development, at all levels of organization and in all organisms, taking advantage of modern findings on behavior, genetics, endocrinology, molecular biology, evolutionary theory and phylogenetics to show the connections between developmental mechanisms and evolutionary change. This book solves key problems that have impeded a definitive synthesis in the past. It uses new concepts and specific examples to show how to relate environmentally sensitive development to the genetic theory of adaptive evolution and to explain major patterns of change. In this book development includes not only embryology and the ontogeny of morphology, sometimes portrayed inadequately as governed by "regulatory genes," but also behavioral development and physiological adaptation, where plasticity is mediated by genetically complex mechanisms like hormones and learning. The book shows how the universal qualities
of phenotypes--modular organization and plasticity--facilitate both integration and change. Here you will learn why it is wrong to describe organisms as genetically programmed; why environmental induction is likely to be more important in evolution than random mutation; and why it is crucial to consider both selection and developmental mechanism in explanations of adaptive evolution. This book satisfies the need for a truly general book on development, plasticity and evolution that applies to living organisms in all of their life stages and environments. Using an immense compendium of examples on many kinds of organisms, from viruses and bacteria to higher plants and animals, it shows how the phenotype is reorganized during evolution to produce novelties, and how alternative phenotypes occupy a pivotal role as a phase of evolution that fosters diversification and speeds change. The arguments of this book call for a new view of the major themes of evolutionary biology, as shown in
chapters on gradualism, homology, environmental induction, speciation, radiation, macroevolution, punctuation, and the maintenance of sex. No other treatment of development and evolution since Darwin's offers such a comprehensive and critical discussion of the relevant issues. Developmental Plasticity and Evolution is designed for biologists interested in the development and evolution of behavior, life-history patterns, ecology, physiology, morphology and speciation. It will also appeal to evolutionary paleontologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and teachers of general biology.

Genres: Science, Evolution, Biology, Nonfiction, Biography

815 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Tom Stephens · Rating 5 out of 5]

The gene jocks want you to believe it is all about the selfish gene. It is not. Drop a gene in a pool of water and it just degrades. It is all about phenotypes.

[J.P. Drury · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unbelievable text. It took her around 15 years to write, so I shouldn't complain about how long it took me to read it. On the other end of this thing, my thinking about evolutionary processes is completely reshaped. I can easily/happily say that MJWE has undone the damage that the gene-centered pedagogy had done to me.

[Grouchymax]

I am obsessed with this book. I am not currently reading any other "currently reading" books, as I am only interested in this book right now.

[Tristan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mind blowing for a naïve graduate/phd student like myself. This tome of wisdom should be distributed far and wide, and many an undergrad module on evolutionary biology reworked.

[Monica Perez]

This book is basically a text about a theory that would make evolution plausible. If organisms can adapt their bodies phenotypically to their environment while they are developing, then pass those changes onto their offspring genotypically, then strictly random mutation is not necessary for evolution. This is just the missing link evolutionary theory needs.

[Bìtao Qiu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would summarise with a copy from the second last chapter of the book: "The expectations of theory colour perception to such a degree that new notions seldom arise from facts collected under the influence of old pictures of the world. New pictures must cast their influence before facts can be seen in different perspective. "

For me, this book is the new picture.