Combining insights from observation, experimentation, and theory, The Origin, Expansion, and Demise of Plant Species offers a broad overview of species as dynamic entities that arise, have unique evolutionary histories, and ultimately go extinct. It begins with a review of species concepts and the exposition of a new concept; it then addresses plant speciation, the expansion of species from their narrow centers of origin, intraspecific differentiation, and contact zones between differentiated population systems. Special attention is given to the breakdown of cohesion among populations by reproductive and spatial barriers. Also, the ecological and genetic properties of small populations and fragmented population systems are discussed with a focus on the role of hybridization in the demise of species. It ends with an exploration of the longevity of species and the tempo of diversification, contrasting different groups of plants in these respects as well as in rates of chromosomal differentiation. This book provides a new synthesis of evolutionary biology and ecology. It examines species from their origins, then follows them through their expansion, differentiation and loss of cohesion, and decline and extinction. The stages in the lives of species are viewed through ecological and genetic theory, and topics typically addressed independently are woven into a continuous fabric. As the first synthetic treatment of the stages through which plant species pass, this book is very useful for botanists, evolutionary biologists, conservation biologists, as well as all curious students of the biological sciences.

Adaptive radiation is the evolution of diversity within a rapidly multiplying lineage. It can cause a single ancestral species to differentiate into an impressively vast array of species inhabiting a variety of environments. Much of life's diversity has arisen during adaptive radiations. Some of the most famous recent examples include the East African cichlid fishes, the Hawaiian silverswords, and of course, Darwin's Gal--aacute--;pagos finches,. This book evaluates the causes of adaptive radiation. It focuses on the 'ecological' theory of adaptive radiation, a body of ideas that began with Darwin and was developed through the early part of the 20th Century. This theory proposes that phenotypic divergence and speciation in adaptive radiation are caused ultimately by divergent natural selection arising from differences in environment and competition between species. In The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation the author re-evaluates the ecological theory, along with its most significant extensions and challenges, in the light of all the recent evidence. This important book is the first full exploration of the causes of adaptive radiation to be published for decades, written by one of the world's best young evolutionary biologists.

Persistence, threats, pathogens, herbivores, interactions, fragmented, landscape, extinction, habitat, disturbance, restoration.

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.

The Proceedings of an International Workshop sponsored by the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research held December 11-13, 2002 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

An enduring controversy in evolutionary biology is the genetic basis of adaptation. Darwin emphasized "many slight differences" as the ultimate source of variation to be acted upon by natural selection. In the early 1900’s, this view was opposed by "Mendelian geneticists", who emphasized the importance of "macromutations" in evolution. The Modern Synthesis resolved this controversy, concluding that mutations in genes of very small effect were responsible for adaptive evolution. A decade ago, Allen Orr and Jerry Coyne reexamined the evidence for this neo-Darwinian view and found that both the theoretical and empirical basis for it were weak. Orr and Coyne encouraged evolutionary biologists to reexamine this neglected question: what is the genetic basis of adaptive evolution? In this volume, a new generation of biologists have taken up this challenge. Using advances in both molecular genetic and statistical techniques, evolutionary geneticists have made considerable progress in this emerging field. In this volume, a diversity of examples from plant and animal studies provides valuable information for those interested in the genetics and evolution of complex traits.