This edited volume is provides an authoritative synthesis of knowledge about the history of life. All the major groups of organisms are treated, by the leading workers in their fields. With sections on: The Importance of Knowing the Tree of Life; The Origin and Radiation of Life on Earth; The Relationships of Green Plants; The Relationships of Fungi; and The Relationships of Animals. This book should prove indispensable for evolutionary biologists, taxonomists, ecologists interested in biodiversity, and as a baseline sourcebook for organismic biologists, botanists, and microbiologists. An essential reference in this fundamental area.

To document the world's diversity of species and reconstruct the tree of life we need to undertake some simple but mountainous tasks. Most importantly, we need to tackle species rich groups. We need to collect, name, and classify them, and then position them on the tree of life. We need to do this systematically across all groups of organisms and b

The Great Tree of Life is a concise, approachable treatment that surveys the concept of the Tree of Life, including chapters on its historical introduction and cultural connection. The Tree of Life is a metaphor used to describe the relationships between organisms, both living and extinct. It has been widely recognized that the relationship between the roughly 10 million species on earth drives the ecological system. This work covers options on how to build the tree, demonstrating its utility in drug discovery, curing disease, crop improvement, conservation biology and ecology, along with tactics on how to respond to the challenges of climate change. This book is a key aid on the improvement of our understanding of the relationships between species, the increasing and essential awareness of biodiversity, and the power of employing modern biology to build the tree of life. - Provides a single reference describing the properties, history and utility of The Tree of Life - Introduces phylogenetics and its applications in an approachable manner - Written by experts on the Tree of Life - Includes an online companion site containing various original videos to enhance the reader's understanding and experience

Did you know that you are more closely related to a mushroom than to a daisy? That dinosaurs are still among us? That the terms "fish" and "invertebrates" do not indicate scientific groupings? All this is the result of major changes in classification. This book diagrams the tree of life according to the most recent methods of this system.

This 199 book reviews discoveries in astronomy, paleontology, biology and chemistry to help us to understand the likely origin of life on Earth.

The long-awaited revision of the industry standard on phylogenetics Since the publication of the first edition of this landmark volume more than twenty-five years ago, phylogenetic systematics has taken its place as the dominant paradigm of systematic biology. It has profoundly influenced the way scientists study evolution, and has seen many theoretical and technical advances as the field has continued to grow. It goes almost without saying that the next twenty-five years of phylogenetic research will prove as fascinating as the first, with many exciting developments yet to come. This new edition of Phylogenetics captures the very essence of this rapidly evolving discipline. Written for the practicing systematist and phylogeneticist, it addresses both the philosophical and technical issues of the field, as well as surveys general practices in taxonomy. Major sections of the book deal with the nature of species and higher taxa, homology and characters, trees and tree graphs, and biogeography—the purpose being to develop biologically relevant species, character, tree, and biogeographic concepts that can be applied fruitfully to phylogenetics. The book then turns its focus to phylogenetic trees, including an in-depth guide to tree-building algorithms. Additional coverage includes: Parsimony and parsimony analysis Parametric phylogenetics including maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches Phylogenetic classification Critiques of evolutionary taxonomy, phenetics, and transformed cladistics Specimen selection, field collecting, and curating Systematic publication and the rules of nomenclature Providing a thorough synthesis of the field, this important update to Phylogenetics is essential for students and researchers in the areas of evolutionary biology, molecular evolution, genetics and evolutionary genetics, paleontology, physical anthropology, and zoology.

A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK Winner of the 2022 BookTube Silver Medal in Fiction * Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction "A wise novel of love and grief, roots and branches, displacement and home, faith and belief. Balm for our bruised times." -David Mitchell, author of Utopia Avenue A rich, magical new novel on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he's searching for lost love. Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited--- her only connection to her family's troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world. A moving, beautifully written, and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history, and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak's best work yet.