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Evolutionary biology
 
 
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Evolution
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
ary biology is a sub-field of biology
Biology

Biology is a branch of the natural sciences concerned with the study of living organisms and their interaction with each other and their environment ....
 concerned with the origin of species
Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
 from a common descent
Common descent

A group of organisms is said to have common descent if they have a common ancestor. In modern biology, it is generally accepted that all living organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor or ancestral gene pool....
 and descent
Descent

Descent may refer to:*Genealogy** Common descent, concept in evolutionary biology** Kinship and descent, one of the major concepts of cultural anthropology...
 of species, as well as their change
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
, multiplication and diversity over time. Someone who studies evolutionary biology is known as an evolutionary biologist.

utionary biology is an interdisciplinary field because it includes scientists from a wide range of both field and lab
Laboratory

A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which science research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories....
 oriented disciplines.






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Evolution
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
ary biology is a sub-field of biology
Biology

Biology is a branch of the natural sciences concerned with the study of living organisms and their interaction with each other and their environment ....
 concerned with the origin of species
Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
 from a common descent
Common descent

A group of organisms is said to have common descent if they have a common ancestor. In modern biology, it is generally accepted that all living organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor or ancestral gene pool....
 and descent
Descent

Descent may refer to:*Genealogy** Common descent, concept in evolutionary biology** Kinship and descent, one of the major concepts of cultural anthropology...
 of species, as well as their change
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
, multiplication and diversity over time. Someone who studies evolutionary biology is known as an evolutionary biologist.

Description

Evolutionary biology is an interdisciplinary field because it includes scientists from a wide range of both field and lab
Laboratory

A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which science research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories....
 oriented disciplines. For example, it generally includes scientists who may have a specialist training in particular organism
Organism

In biology, an organism is any life thing . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimulus , reproduction, growth and developmental biology, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole....
s such as mammalogy
Mammalogy

In zoology, mammalogy is the study of mammals ? a class of vertebrates with characteristics such as homeothermic metabolism, fur, four-chambered hearts, and complex nervous systems....
, ornithology
Ornithology

Ornithology is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of birds. Several aspects of the study of ornithology differ from closely related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds....
, or herpetology
Herpetology

Herpetology is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians and of reptiles .Herpetology is concerned with poikilothermic, or ectothermic, tetrapods....
, but use those organisms as case studies
Case study

A case study is one of several ways of doing research whether it is social science related or even socially related. It is an intensive study of a single group, incident, or community.Other ways include experiments, statistical survey, multiple histories, and analysis of archival information ....
 to answer general questions in evolution. It also generally includes paleontologists
Paleontology

File:Geological time spiral - sharper.pngPaleontology from Greek: pa?a??? "old, ancient", ??, ??t- "being, creature", and ????? "speech, thought" is the study of prehistory life, including organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments ....
 and geologists
Geology

Geology is the science and study of the solid and liquid matter that constitute the Earth. The field of geology encompasses the study of the composition, structural geology, physical properties, dynamics, and History of the Earth of Earth materials, and the processes by which they are formed, moved, and changed....
 who use fossils to answer questions about the tempo and mode of evolution, as well as theoreticians in areas such as population genetics
Population genetics

Population genetics is the study of the allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four evolutionary processes: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene flow....
 and evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology attempts to explain Mind and psychology Trait theorys?such as memory, perception, or language?as adaptations, that is, as the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection....
. Experimentalists have used selection in Drosophila
Drosophila

Drosophila is a genus of small fly, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "fruit flies" or more appropriately pomace flies, vinegar flies, or wine flies, a reference to the characteristic of many species to linger around overripe or rotting fruit....
 to develop an understanding of the evolution of ageing
Evolution of ageing

Enquiry into the evolution of ageing aims to explain why almost all life weaken and death with age. There is not yet agreement in the scientific community on a single answer....
, and experimental evolution
Experimental evolution

In evolutionary biology, the field of experimental evolution is concerned with testing hypotheses and evolution by use of controlled experiments....
 is a very active subdiscipline.

In the 1990s developmental biology
Developmental biology

Developmental biology is the study of the process by which organisms grow and develop. Modern developmental biology studies the genetic control of cell growth, cellular differentiation and "morphogenesis," which is the process that gives rise to biological tissues, organ s and anatomy....
 made a re-entry into evolutionary biology from its initial exclusion from the modern synthesis through the study of evolutionary developmental biology
Evolutionary developmental biology

Evolutionary developmental biology is a field of biology that compares the developmental biology of different animals and plants in an attempt to determine the ancestral relationship between organisms and how developmental processes evolution....
.

Its findings feed strongly into new disciplines that study mankind's sociocultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution

Sociocultural evolution is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and society have developed over time....
 and evolutionary behavior
Evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology attempts to explain Mind and psychology Trait theorys?such as memory, perception, or language?as adaptations, that is, as the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection....
. Evolutionary biology's frameworks of ideas and conceptual tools are now finding application in the study of a range of subjects from computing
Computing

Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and developing computer technology, computer hardware and computer software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology....
 to nanotechnology
Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology, shortened to "Nanotech", is the study of the control of matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally nanotechnology deals with structures of the size 100 nanometers or smaller, and involves developing materials or devices within that size....
.

Artificial life
Artificial life

Artificial life is a field of study and an associated art form which examine systems related to life, its processes, and its evolution through simulations using computer models, robotics, and biochemistry....
 is a sub-field of bioinformatics
Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is the application of information technology to the field of molecular biology. The term bioinformatics was coined by Paulien Hogeweg in 1978 for the study of informatic processes in biotic systems....
 that attempts to model, or even recreate, the evolution of organisms as described by evolutionary biology. Usually this is done through mathematics and computer models.

History


Evolutionary biology as an academic discipline in its own right emerged as a result of the modern evolutionary synthesis
Modern evolutionary synthesis

The modern evolutionary synthesis is a union of ideas from several biology specialties which forms a logical account of evolution. This synthesis has been generally accepted by most working biologists....
 in the 1930s and 1940s. It was not until the 1970s and 1980s, however, that a significant number of universities had departments that specifically included the term evolutionary biology in their titles. In the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
, as a result of the rapid growth of molecular
Molecular biology

Molecular biology is the study of biology at a molecule level. The field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry....
 and cell biology
Cell biology

Cell biology is an list of academic disciplines that studies cell s ? their physiology properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their cell cycle, cell division and apoptosis....
, many universities have split (or aggregated) their biology departments into molecular and cell biology-style departments and ecology and evolutionary biology-style departments (which often have subsumed older departments in paleontology
Paleontology

File:Geological time spiral - sharper.pngPaleontology from Greek: pa?a??? "old, ancient", ??, ??t- "being, creature", and ????? "speech, thought" is the study of prehistory life, including organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments ....
, zoology
Zoology

Zoology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of animals. The most common pronunciation of "zoology" is ; however, an alternative pronunciation is ....
 and the like).

Microbiology
Microbiology

Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are unicellular or cell-cluster microscopic organisms. This includes eukaryote such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes, which are bacteria and archaea....
 has recently developed into an evolutionary discipline. It was originally ignored due to the paucity of morphological traits and the lack of a species concept in microbiology. Now, evolutionary researchers are taking advantage of our extensive understanding of microbial physiology, the ease of microbial genomics
Genomics

Genomics is the study of the genomes of organisms. The field includes intensive efforts to determine the entire DNA sequence of organisms and fine-scale genetic mapping efforts....
, and the quick generation time of some microbes to answer evolutionary questions. Similar features have led to progress in viral
Virus

A virus is a Optical microscope#Limitations of light microscopes infectious agent that is unable to grow or reproduce outside a host cell . Viruses infect all cellular life....
 evolution, particularly for bacteriophage
Bacteriophage

A bacteriophage is any one of a number of viruses that infection bacteria. The term is commonly used in its shortened form, phage.Typically, bacteriophages consist of an outer protein hull enclosing genetic material....
.

Notable evolutionary biologists


Notable contributors to evolutionary biology


Evolutionary biologists known primarily for their science popularization


Notable popularizers of evolution whose research isn't primarily concerned with evolutionary biology


Bibliography


Textbooks

  • Douglas J. Futuyma
    Douglas J. Futuyma

    Douglas Joel Futuyma is an United States biology....
    , Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition), Sinauer Associates (1998) ISBN 0-87893-189-9
  • Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolution, Sinauer Associates (2005) ISBN 0-87893-187-2
  • Mark Ridley
    Mark Ridley (zoologist)

    Mark Ridley is a Great Britain zoology and writer on evolution. He studied at both Oxford University and University of Cambridge in the 1980s, was a professor at Emory University, Atlanta, U.S.A., and - as of 2005 - works at the Department of Zoology, Oxford University....
    , Evolution (3rd edition), Blackwell (2003) ISBN 1-4051-0345-0
  • Scott R. Freeman and Jon C. Herron, Evolutionary Analysis, Prentice Hall (2003) ISBN 0-13-101859-0
  • Michael R. Rose
    Michael R. Rose

    Michael R. Rose is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. His advisor was Brian Charlesworth....
     and Laurence D. Mueller, Evolution and Ecology of the Organism, Prentice Hall (2005) ISBN 0-13-010404-3
  • Monroe W. Strickberger, Evolution (3rd Edition), Jones & Bartlett Publishers (2000) ISBN 0-7637-1066-0


Notable monographs and other works


  • Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
    Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

    Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de la Marck, usually known as Lamarck, was a France soldier, natural history, academia and an early proponent of the idea that evolution occurred and proceeded in accordance with Naturalism ....
     (1809) Philosophie Zoologique
    Philosophie Zoologique

    Philosophie zoologique ou exposition des consid?rations relatives ? l'histoire naturelle des animaux is an 1809 book by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in which he outlines his theory of evolution now known as Lamarckism....
  • Charles Darwin
    Charles Darwin

    Charles Robert Darwin Royal Society was an English people natural history who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolution over time from common descent, through the process he called natural selection....
     (1859) The Origin of Species
    The Origin of Species

    Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species is a seminal work in scientific literature and a landmark work in evolutionary biology. The book's full title is On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life....
  • Charles Darwin
    Charles Darwin

    Charles Robert Darwin Royal Society was an English people natural history who realised and presented compelling evidence that all species of life have evolution over time from common descent, through the process he called natural selection....
     (1871) The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex
  • R.A. Fisher
    Ronald Fisher

    Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, Fellow of the Royal Society was an England statistician, evolutionary biologist, and genetics. He was described by Anders Hald as "a genius who almost single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science" and Richard Dawkins described him as "the greatest of Charles Darwin successors"....
     (1930) The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection
    The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection

    The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection is a book by Ronald Fisher. It was first published in 1930 by Clarendon. It is one of the most important books of the modern evolutionary synthesis and is commonly cited in biology books....
  • J. B. S. Haldane
    J. B. S. Haldane

    John Burdon Sanderson Haldane Royal Society#Fellowship , known as Jack , was a UK-born geneticist and evolutionary biologist. He was one of the founders of population genetics....
     (1932) The Causes of Evolution
    The Causes of Evolution

    The Causes of Evolution is a 1932 book on evolution by J.B.S. Haldane1990 edition ISBN 0-691-02442-1For a contemporary review by R.A. Fisher see...
  • Ernst Mayr (1941) Systematics and the Origin of Species
    Systematics and the Origin of Species

    Systematics and the Origin of Species is a book written by zoologist and evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr that was first published in 1942....
  • Susumu Ohno
    Susumu Ohno

    Susumu Ohno , was an Asian American geneticist and evolutionary biologist, and seminal researcher in the field of molecular evolution....
     (1970) Evolution by gene duplication
  • Richard Dawkins
    Richard Dawkins

    Clinton Richard Dawkins, Royal Society#Fellowship, Royal Society of Literature is a United Kingdom ethology, evolutionary biology and popular science author....
     (1976) The Selfish Gene
    The Selfish Gene

    The Selfish Gene is a book on evolution by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976 in literature. It builds upon the principal theory of George C....
  • Motoo Kimura
    Motoo Kimura

    , was a Japanese biologist best known for introducing the neutral theory of molecular evolution in 1968. He became one of the most influential population geneticss....
     (1983) The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution


Topics in evolutionary biology

  • Foster's rule
    Foster's rule

    Foster's rule is a principle in evolutionary biology stating that members of a species get smaller or bigger depending on the resources available in the environment....
  • Muller's ratchet
    Muller's ratchet

    In evolutionary genetics, Muller's ratchet is the process by which the genomes of an Asexual reproduction population accumulate genetic deletion in an irreversible manner....
  • Mutational meltdown
    Mutational meltdown

    Mutational meltdown refers to the process by which a Small population size accumulates deleterious mutations, which leads to loss of fitness and decline of the population size, which may lead to further accumulation of deleterious mutations due to inbreeding depression....
  • Fitness landscape
    Fitness landscape

    In evolutionary biology, fitness landscapes or adaptive landscapes are used to visualize the relationship between genotypes and reproductive success....
  • Koinophilia
    Koinophilia

    Koinophilia is a term used in biology, meaning that when sexual creatures seek a mate, they prefer that mate not to have any unusual, peculiar or deviant features....
  • List of other evolutionary biology topics
    List of evolutionary biology topics

    This is a list of topics in evolutionary biology....


See also

  • Artificial selection
    Artificial selection

    Artificial selection describes intentional breeding for certain traits, or combination of traits. It was defined by Charles Darwin in contrast to natural selection, in which the differential reproduction of organisms with certain traits is attributed to improved survival or reproductive ability ....
  • Computational phylogenetics
    Computational phylogenetics

    Computational phylogenetics is the application of computational algorithms, methods and programs to Phylogenetics analyses. The goal is to assemble a phylogenetic tree representing a hypothesis about the evolutionary ancestry of a set of genes, species, or other taxa....
  • Evolutionary ecology
    Evolutionary ecology

    Evolutionary ecology lies at the intersection of ecology and evolutionary biology. It approaches the study of ecology in a way that explicitly considers the evolutionary histories of species and the interactions between them....
  • Evolutionary physiology
    Evolutionary physiology

    Evolutionary physiology is the study of physiological evolution, which is to say, the manner in which the functional characteristics of individuals in a population of organisms have responded to selection across multiple generations during the history of the population....
  • Evolutionary tree
  • Genetics
    Genetics

    Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and Genetic variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding....
  • Phylogenetic comparative methods
    Phylogenetic comparative methods

    Phylogenetic comparative methods use information on the evolutionary relationships of organisms to compare species #Reference-Harvey-and-Pagel-1991 ....
  • Phylogenetics
    Phylogenetics

    In biology, phylogenetics is the study of evolutionary relatedness among various groups of organisms , which is discovered through molecular sequencing data and morphological data matrices....
  • Quantitative genetics
    Quantitative genetics

    Quantitative genetics is the study of continuous traits and its underlying mechanisms. It is effectively an extension of simple Mendelian inheritance in that the combined effect of the many underlying genes results in a Continuous probability distribution of phenotypic values....
  • Selective breeding
    Selective breeding

    Selective breeding in domesticated animals is the process of a Breeder developing a cultivated breed over time, and selecting qualities within individuals of the breed that will be best to pass on to the next generation....
  • Sexual selection
    Sexual selection

    Sexual selection is the theory proposed by Charles Darwin that states that certain evolutionary traits can be explained by intraspecific competition....
  • Systematics
    Systematics

    Biological systematics is the study of the diversification of life on the planet Earth, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time....