Description
Recent discoveries in fields ranging from molecular and cell biology to ecology and evolution have given rise to 'ecological and evolutionary developmental biology' (or simply, 'eco-evo-devo'), the new science aimed at clarifying how the interplay between genes and environment shapes how organisms develop, interact, and evolve.Eco-Evo-Devo: The Environmental Regulation of Development, Health, and Evolution provides a synthetic overview of this new field, which merges evolution with ecological developmental biology. The book discusses such major themes as how multicellular organisms function, develop, and evolve as consortia of different symbiotic organisms, how many organisms can generate numerous traits depending on the environmental conditions they experience via phenotypic plasticity, and how living things have evolved several layers of inheritance that do not rely on the transmission of genes from parent to offspring. As the book details, these themes question many of our longstanding assumptions about how biology works, as well as having practical implications in preventing many diseases and mitigating biodiversity loss.Written for any undergraduate and graduate students with a basic knowledge of biology, Eco-Evo-Devo promises to stimulate new thinking about inheritance, development, ecology, evolution, and health.
Table of Contents
Part I: Eco-Evo-Devo: Basic ConceptsChapter 1: A New Way of Thinking About Life Chapter 2: Ecology and Evolution: An Intertwined RelationshipChapter 3: History of Life: Patterns and ProcessesChapter 4: Development: The Origin of Phenotypic VariationPart II: Eco-Evo-Devo: Putting the Concepts TogetherChapter 5: Ecology and Development: Another Intertwined RelationshipChapter 6: The Organism as Ecosystem: Symbiosis in Development and EvolutionChapter 7: Inheritance: An Ecological PerspectiveChapter 8: Evolution through Developmental Regulatory GenesChapter 9: Phenotypic Plasticity and EvolutionChapter 10: The Origins of Complexity in Development and Evolution: From Genomes to SocietiesPart III: Eco-Evo-Devo: Applying the ConceptsChapter 11: Teratogenesis: Environmental Assaults on DevelopmentChapter 12: Endocrine DisruptorsChapter 13: Developmental Origins of Adult Health and DiseaseChapter 14: Eco-Evo-Devo and the Biodiversity Crisis
