Shaking the Tree: Readings from Nature in the History of LifeHenry Gee Nature has published news about the history of life ever since its first issue in 1869, in which T. H. Huxley ("Darwin's bulldog") wrote about Triassic dinosaurs. In recent years, the field has enjoyed a tremendous flowering due to new investigative techniques drawn from cladistics (a revolutionary method for charting evolutionary relationships) and molecular biology. Shaking the Tree brings together nineteen review articles written for Nature over the past decade by many of the major figures in paleontology and evolution, from Stephen Jay Gould to Simon Conway Morris. Each article is brief, accessible, and opinionated, providing "shoot from the hip" accounts of the latest news and debates. Topics covered include major extinction events, homeotic genes and body plans, the origin and evolution of the primates, and reconstructions of phylogenetic trees for a wide variety of groups. The editor, Henry Gee, gives new commentary and updated references. Shaking the Tree is a one-stop resource for engaging overviews of the latest research in the history of life on Earth. |
Contents
Shaken and Stirred | 1 |
Shaping the Tree How to Create a Tree of Life | 13 |
Punctuated Equilibrium Comes of Age | 17 |
The Major Evolutionary Transitions | 32 |
The Powers of Pitfalls of Parsimony | 48 |
Geoffroys Legacy Development Evolution and Paleontology | 63 |
Homeotic Genes and the Evolution of Arthropods and Chordates | 69 |
A Common Plan for Dorsoventral Patterning in Bilateria | 89 |
Shaking the Tree Case Histories in Phylogeny | 205 |
The Origin and Early Evolution of Plants on Land | 217 |
The Origin and Early Diversification of Angiosperms | 233 |
Agnathans and the Orgin of Jawed Vertebrates | 251 |
The Origin and Early Diversification of Tetrapods | 267 |
The First 85 Million Years of Avian Evolution | 288 |
Shaking the Tree | 306 |
Climbing Down The History of Primates | 321 |
Fossils Genes and the Evolution of Animals Limbs | 100 |
The Fossil Record and the Early Evolution of the Metazoa | 128 |
Seeing the Tree for the Woods The Global Context | 147 |
Latest Proterozoic Stratigraphy and Earth History | 153 |
The Early Development of Terrestrial Ecosystems | 169 |
The PermoTriassic Extinction | 189 |
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Common terms and phrases
Acanthostega adapids adaptations agnathans analysis ancestor angiosperms animals apes appendages Archaeopteryx arthropods basal Biol biology birds body plans Cambrian Cambridge Carboniferous cells characters chordates clade cladistic colugos complex Conway Morris correlation cranial Cretaceous derived Devonian digits diversification diversity dorsal Drosophila earliest early Ediacaran Enantiornithes Eocene evidence Evol evolution evolutionary evolved example expression extant extinction fauna fins forelimb fossil record genetic Geol gnathostomes groups habilis hagfishes homeotic genes hominoid Homo homologous Hox genes Ichthyostega insects isotopic known lampreys land plants late limb lineages Lower mammals metazoan modern molecular morphological Nature Neoproterozoic omomyids organization origin paleontology parsimony pattern Permian phylogenetic phylogeny plesiadapiforms pollen postcranial Press primates proteins Proterozoic punctuated equilibrium recent regulatory relationships relative Science sequences Silurian simians similar skeleton skull species spores stratigraphic structure studies suggest tarsiers taxa terrestrial tetrapod tion tree Univ vascular plants ventral vertebrate wing Zool
References to this book
The Changing Role of the Embryo in Evolutionary Thought: Roots of Evo-Devo Ron Amundson Limited preview - 2005 |