Author: Travis R. Robbins Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages :
Book Description
ABSTRACT: To understand the evolutionary and ecological significance of geographic variation in life history traits, we must understand whether the patterns are induced through plastic or adaptive responses. The Eastern Fence Lizard, Sceloporus undulatus, exhibits countergradient variation (larger body sizes, et cetera, in northern, cooler environments; presumed adaptive) in life history traits across its large geographic range. However, cogradient variation (the expected result from a plastic response, although not necessarily inconsistent with adaptation) has been suggested as a null hypothesis, especially on fine geographic scales because of relatively small environmental changes. Here we focus on life history variation on a fine geographic scale to test whether cogradient variation is exhibited even though countergradient variation is exhibited at larger scales, and if so, what mechanisms are involved in the switch. We examined north and south populations (~2° latitude between) of the S. undulatus, and the Florida Scrub Lizard, S. woodi, by measuring adult body sizes, reproduction, and hatchling body sizes over a two year period and conducting reciprocal transplants of juvenile lizards each year. Our results indicate cogradient variation (larger body size in the southern population experiencing a warmer environment) in life history traits of S. undulatus and countergradient variation, a lack of variation in adult body size, in S. woodi along the Florida peninsula. Thus, S. undulatus exhibits cogradient variation at fine geographic scales and countergradient variation at larger scales. Reciprocal transplants revealed that the larger adult body sizes in the southern population of S. undulatus could be explained by longer growth periods allowed by greater intrinsic survival. In S. woodi, the larger than expected adult body sizes in the north could be explained by faster intrinsic and extrinsic juvenile growth rates in the northern population. Because S. undulatus and S. woodi remain distinct species associated with distinct, though adjacent, habitats, we also looked for habitat-specific adaptations. The second reciprocal transplant (between species and habitats) revealed habitat-specific adaptations in juvenile growth rates, but not juvenile survival. Each native species grew faster and had a higher average probability of reaching size at maturity in their native environment than did the foreign species.
Author: Derek A. Roff Publisher: Sinauer Associates Incorporated ISBN: 9780878937561 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 527
Book Description
Life History Evolution represents a synthetic approach to the understanding of the evolution of life history variation using the three types of environment (constant, stochastic, predictable) as the focus under which the theory is developed and tested. First, the author outlines a general framework for the study and analysis of life history variation, bringing together the approaches of quantitative genetic modeling and optimality analysis. Using this framework, he then discusses how life histories evolve in the three different types of environments, each of which presents unique characteristics. The theme of the book is that an understanding of evolutionary change requires analysis at both the genetic and phenotypic levels, and that the environment plays a central role in such analyses. Intended for graduate students and researchers, the book's emphasis is on assumptions and testing of models. Mathematical processes are described, but mathematical derivations are kept to a minimum. Each chapter includes a summary, and boxes provide supplementary material.
Author: Niko Balkenhol Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 1118525299 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 298
Book Description
LANDSCAPE GENETICS: CONCEPTS, METHODS, APPLICATIONS LANDSCAPE GENETICS: CONCEPTS, METHODS, APPLICATIONS Edited by Niko Balkenhol, Samuel A. Cushman, Andrew T. Storfer, Lisette P. Waits Landscape genetics is an exciting and rapidly growing field, melding methods and theory from landscape ecology and population genetics to address some of the most challenging and urgent ecological and evolutionary topics of our time. Landscape genetic approaches now enable researchers to study in detail how environmental complexity in space and time affect gene flow, genetic drift, and local adaptation. However, learning about the concepts and methods underlying the field remains challenging due to the highly interdisciplinary nature of the field, which relies on topics that have traditionally been treated separately in classes and textbooks. In this edited volume, some of the leading experts in landscape genetics provide the first comprehensive introduction to underlying concepts, commonly used methods, and current and future applications of landscape genetics. Consistent with the interdisciplinary nature of the field, the book includes textbook-like chapters that synthesize fundamental concepts and methods underlying landscape genetics (Part 1), chapters on advanced topics that deserve a more in-depth treatment (Part 2), and chapters illustrating the use of concepts and methods in empirical applications (Part 3). Aimed at beginning landscape geneticists and experienced researchers alike, this book will be helpful for all scientists and practitioners interested in learning, teaching, and applying landscape genetics.
Author: Jordi Catalan Publisher: Springer ISBN: 3319559826 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 413
Book Description
This book provides case studies and general views of the main processes involved in the ecosystem shifts occurring in the high mountains and analyses the implications for nature conservation. Case studies from the Pyrenees are preponderant, with a comprehensive set of mountain ranges surrounded by highly populated lowland areas also being considered. The introductory and closing chapters will summarise the main challenges that nature conservation may face in mountain areas under the environmental shifting conditions. Further chapters put forward approaches from environmental geography, functional ecology, biogeography, and paleoenvironmental reconstructions. Organisms from microbes to large carnivores, and ecosystems from lakes to forest will be considered. This interdisciplinary book will appeal to researchers in mountain ecosystems, students and nature professionals. This book is open access under a CC BY license.
Author: Peter Berthold Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 3662059576 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 601
Book Description
P. Berthold and E. Gwinnd Bird migration is an intriguing aspect of the living world - so much so that it has been investigated for as long, and as thoroughly, as almost any other natural phenomenon. Aristotle, who can count as the founder of scientific ornithology, paid very close attention to the migrations of the birds he ob served, but it was not until the reign of Friedrich II, in the first half of the 13th century, that reliable data began to be obtained. From then on, the data base grew rapidly. Systematic studies of bird migration were introduced when the Vogelwarte Rossitten was founded, as the first ornithological biological observation station in the world (see first chapter "In Memory of Vogelwarte Rossitten"). This area later received enormous impetus when ex perimental research on the subject was begun: the large-scale bird-ringing experiment initiated in Rossitten in 1903 by Johannes Thienemann (who was inspired by the pioneering studies of C. C. M. Mortensen), the experiments on photoperiodicity carried out by William Rowan in the 1920s in Canada and retention and release experiments performed by Thienemann in the 1930s in Rossitten, the first experimental study on the orientation of migratory birds. After the Second World War, migration research, while continuing in the previous areas, also expanded into new directions such as radar ornithology, ecophysiology and hormonal control mechanisms, studies of evolution, ge netics, telemetry and others.
Author: J. Philip Grime Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 1118223276 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 362
Book Description
THE EVOLUTIONARY STRATEGIES THAT SHAPE ECOSYSTEMS In 1837 a young Charles Darwin took his notebook, wrote “I think”, and then sketched a rudimentary, stick-like tree. Each branch of Darwin’s tree of life told a story of survival and adaptation – adaptation of animals and plants not just to the environment but also to life with other living things. However, more than 150 years since Darwin published his singular idea of natural selection, the science of ecology has yet to account for how contrasting evolutionary outcomes affect the ability of organisms to coexist in communities and to regulate ecosystem functioning. In this book Philip Grime and Simon Pierce explain how evidence from across the world is revealing that, beneath the wealth of apparently limitless and bewildering variation in detailed structure and functioning, the essential biology of all organisms is subject to the same set of basic interacting constraints on life-history and physiology. The inescapable resulting predicament during the evolution of every species is that, according to habitat, each must adopt a predictable compromise with regard to how they use the resources at their disposal in order to survive. The compromise involves the investment of resources in either the effort to acquire more resources, the tolerance of factors that reduce metabolic performance, or reproduction. This three-way trade-off is the irreducible core of the universal adaptive strategy theory which Grime and Pierce use to investigate how two environmental filters selecting, respectively, for convergence and divergence in organism function determine the identity of organisms in communities, and ultimately how different evolutionary strategies affect the functioning of ecosystems. This book refl ects an historic phase in which evolutionary processes are finally moving centre stage in the effort to unify ecological theory, and animal, plant and microbial ecology have begun to find a common theoretical framework. Companion website This book has a companion website www.wiley.com/go/grime/evolutionarystrategies with Figures and Tables from the book for downloading.
Author: Angela Wagner Publisher: Classroom Complete Press ISBN: 1771677023 Category : Languages : en Pages : 28
Book Description
**This is the chapter slice "A Case Study: The Koala and Its Adaptations" from the full lesson plan "Classification & Adaptation"** What Do We Classify? What is the difference between warm-blooded and cold-blooded animals? Students will also learn to distinguish between vertebrates and invertebrates, understand animal adaptation through a case study: The Koala and Its Adaptations. Even evolution and the fossil record making with hands-on activities including: How Important Are Thumbs? The Lake Habitat Thermometer and A Day in the Life of a Paleontologist! Our resource provides ready-to-use information and activities for remedial students using simplified language and vocabulary. Science concepts are presented in a way that makes them more accessible to students and easier to understand. Comprised of reading passages, student activities, test prep, and color mini posters, our resource can be used effectively for test prep, whole-class, small group and independent work. All of our content is aligned to your State Standards and are written to Bloom's Taxonomy and STEM initiatives.
Author: Régis Ferrière Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1139453750 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 447
Book Description
As anthropogenic environmental changes spread and intensify across the planet, conservation biologists have to analyze dynamics at large spatial and temporal scales. Ecological and evolutionary processes are then closely intertwined. In particular, evolutionary responses to anthropogenic environmental change can be so fast and pronounced that conservation biology can no longer afford to ignore them. To tackle this challenge, areas of conservation biology that are disparate ought to be integrated into a unified framework. Bringing together conservation genetics, demography, and ecology, this book introduces evolutionary conservation biology as an integrative approach to managing species in conjunction with ecological interactions and evolutionary processes. Which characteristics of species and which features of environmental change foster or hinder evolutionary responses in ecological systems? How do such responses affect population viability, community dynamics, and ecosystem functioning? Under which conditions will evolutionary responses ameliorate, rather than worsen, the impact of environmental change?
Author: Eustaquio Gil-Pelegrín Publisher: Springer ISBN: 331969099X Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 544
Book Description
With more than 500 species distributed all around the Northern Hemisphere, the genus Quercus L. is a dominant element of a wide variety of habitats including temperate, tropical, subtropical and mediterranean forests and woodlands. As the fossil record reflects, oaks were usual from the Oligocene onwards, showing the high ability of the genus to colonize new and different habitats. Such diversity and ecological amplitude makes genus Quercus an excellent framework for comparative ecophysiological studies, allowing the analysis of many mechanisms that are found in different oaks at different level (leaf or stem). The combination of several morphological and physiological attributes defines the existence of different functional types within the genus, which are characteristic of specific phytoclimates. From a landscape perspective, oak forests and woodlands are threatened by many factors that can compromise their future: a limited regeneration, massive decline processes, mostly triggered by adverse climatic events or the competence with other broad-leaved trees and conifer species. The knowledge of all these facts can allow for a better management of the oak forests in the future.
Author: Travis R. Robbins
Author: Derek A. Roff
Author: Niko Balkenhol
Author: Jordi Catalan
Author: John A. Endler
Author: Peter Berthold
Author: J. Philip Grime
Author: Angela Wagner
Author: Régis Ferrière
Author: Eustaquio Gil-Pelegrín