This timely and comprehensive update of the original text integrates a diverse and scattered literature to produce a synthetic account of Mediterranean plant evolutionary ecology. It maintains the accessible style of its previous version whilst incorporating recent work in the context of a new structural framework.

Plant Evolution in the Mediterranean integrates a diverse and scattered literature to produce a synthetic account of plant evolutionary ecology. The central theme is differentiation, both among and within species in the contemporary flora of the Mediterranean basin. This approach is developed by attempting to link population processes to species evolution, and by examining the variation and evolution of ecological function in the context of spatial habitat variation and regional history. This accessible text explores the evolutionary processes which have shaped plant evolution in the context of these major influences on vegetation.

Since the first edition of this book published in 2005, there has been an immense amount of new and fascinating work on the history, ecology, and evolution of the Mediterranean flora. During this time, human impacts have continued to increase dramatically, significantly influencing both the ecology and evolution of the region's biota. This timely and comprehensive update of the original text integrates a diverse and scattered literature to produce a synthetic account of Mediterranean plant evolutionary ecology. It maintains the accessible style of its previous version whilst incorporating recent work in a new structural framework. This is not a traditional "plant science" book per se, but a novel integration of history, ecology, biogeography, and evolution, all set in the context of a dramatically increasing human footprint. There is a particular emphasis on the role of human activities as an ecological factor and their subsequent impact on plant evolution. Conversely, it demonstrates how an understanding of the evolutionary ecology of the region's flora can be used to provide insights into its future conservation and management. Plant Evolution in the Mediterranean is aimed at all those who are interested in the biology of the Mediterranean region, whether it is taxonomy, ecology, evolution, conservation policy and management, or the regional history of its biodiversity in general. It will be of relevance and use to all graduate students and researchers of Mediterranean-type ecosystem ecology and geography, as well as professional ecologists, evolutionary biologists, conservation biologists, and environmental practitioners requiring a concise, authoritative overview of the topic.

No other disjunct pieces of land present such striking similarities as the widely sepa 1 rated regions with a mediterranean type of climate, that is, the territories fringing the Mediterranean Sea, California, Central Chile and the southernmost strips of South Mrica and Australia. Similarities are not confined to climatic trends, but are also reflected in the physiognomy ofthe vegetation, in land use patterns and frequently in the general appearance of the landscape. The very close similarities in agricultural practices and sometimes also in rural settlements are dependent on the climatic and edaphic analogies, as well as on a certain commonality in qdtural history. This is certainly true for the Mediterranean Sea basin which in many ways represents a sort of ecological-cultural unit; this is also valid for CaUfornia and Chile, which were both settled by Spaniards and which showed periods of vigorous commercial and cultural interchanges as during the California gold rush. One other general feature is the massive interchange of cultivated and weed species of plants that has occurred between the five areas of the world that have a mediterranean-type climate, with the Mediterranean basin region itself as a major source. In spite of their limited territorial extension, probably no other parts of the world have played a more fundamental role in the history of mankind. Phoenician, Etruscan, Hellenic, Jewish, Roman, Christian andArab civilizations, among others,haveshapedmanyofman's present attitudes, including his position and perception vis-a-vis nature.

Molecular Systematics and Plant Evolution discusses the diversity and evolution of plants with a molecular approach. It looks at population genetics, phylogeny (history of evolution) and developmental genetics, to provide a framework from which to understand evolutionary patterns and relationships amongst plants. The international panel of contributors are all respected systematists and evolutionary biologists, who have brought together a wide range of topics from the forefront of research while keeping the text accessible to students. It has been written for senior undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in the fields of botany, systematics, population / conservation genetics, phylogenetics and evolutionary biology.

Table of contents

Although plants comprise more than 90% of all visible life, and land plants and algae collectively make up the most morphologically, physiologically, and ecologically diverse group of organisms on earth, books on evolution instead tend to focus on animals. This organismal bias has led to an incomplete and often erroneous understanding of evolutionary theory. Because plants grow and reproduce differently than animals, they have evolved differently, and generally accepted evolutionary views—as, for example, the standard models of speciation—often fail to hold when applied to them. Tapping such wide-ranging topics as genetics, gene regulatory networks, phenotype mapping, and multicellularity, as well as paleobotany, Karl J. Niklas’s Plant Evolution offers fresh insight into these differences. Following up on his landmark book The Evolutionary Biology of Plants—in which he drew on cutting-edge computer simulations that used plants as models to illuminate key evolutionary theories—Niklas incorporates data from more than a decade of new research in the flourishing field of molecular biology, conveying not only why the study of evolution is so important, but also why the study of plants is essential to our understanding of evolutionary processes. Niklas shows us that investigating the intricacies of plant development, the diversification of early vascular land plants, and larger patterns in plant evolution is not just a botanical pursuit: it is vital to our comprehension of the history of all life on this green planet.