Animals and Evolution Books

The title of this volume is an understatement: this book has necesary information for anyone who would understand the basis of butterfly classification, identification, and speciation. Check the table of contents. The contributions are of the highest level. See especially the annex.

'Up to now, a 'state of the art' summary of research on whale origins has not been available. This book admirably fills that void and should be added to the library of any serious mammologist or paleomammalogist.'
- by Annalisa Berta

Searcy and Nowicki are two of the best behaviorists anywhere who study animal communication. This book is a thorough examination of signals that "must be" truthful by their nature and those than the sender can fake. Everyone interested in animal signaling should read this book.

The Evolution of Communication gives a distintive opinion of evolutionary psychology, animal cognition, and cognitive neuroscience. Easy to read and understand, many of the hypotheses and comments of Marc Hauser are now being applied to larger academic issues, such as the "concept acquisition" problem in philosophy. The strengths of this book lie in its overarching predictions, and the supplemental and thorough examples.

If you're looking at this book, you probably already know what you're in for. This is a tremendously detailed text on comparative morphology that seeks to trace the origins of organ systems from the original metazoans on downward. Each chapter takes a separate organ system -- nervous, circulatory, excretory, and so forth -- and discusses how it is structured with respect to the phyla (ALL of the phyla). It then concludes with the author's analysis of the implications of the morphological discussion for evolution -- which features were original to a shared ancestor (thereby indicating relationships between the phyla), and which are instead likely just the product of convergent evolution.

Not being an introductory text, this book will probably be incomprehensible if you do not already know a fair bit about all the metazoan phyla and some of the competing theories regarding their origins and differentiation. But that being said, it's not overly complex otherwise, and is a very interesting read. The illustrations, moreover, are well done and plentiful.

If I had a criticism, it would be that the text gets a little dull and rote, mechanically following its organizational scheme without as many digressions and charming anecdotes as I'd like. But you can't have everything. There's really no other book out there in English, to my knowledge, that is as detailed on this subject. So if you are at all interested in comparative morphology of the phyla, this is the one for you.

This book is the "bible" for evolutionary biologists interested in sibling rivalry, and a valuable resource for those interested in parent-offspring conflict. The writing style is engaging and very entertaining for a scientific book, although the math may be difficult for some. A definite must-read for anyone in this area, or for those who are generally interested in Hamiltonian fitness and its impacts.

This short book (271, not 500+ pages as stated by Amazon)consists of brief review articles by leading researchers, followed by an edited Q&A/discussion section that followed the presentations at a symposium held in 4/99. Don't bother even trying to read this unless you've got a pretty good background in developmental biology, neuroanatomy, and molecular biology, as much of the book discusses how, for example, various morphogen genes like Emx1, WNT, FGF8 etc are involved in patterning brain structure. But if this stuff turns you on, there's a wealth of information here, and the discussion sections show where the field will be headed.

This ecological masterpiece is essential to our research here at Bucknell University. Their work with the ball-gall fly and goldenrod is methodical and illustrates the details of the plant/animal interaction. This is a must read for anyone interested in plant-insect interactions! M.B and L.Y.

This book is really great for students interested in evolutionary ecology. All topics are up to date and each chapter is written by experts in their field. A must have for anyone in ecology and evolution!

This book is a stellar resource, addressing what it means to be a female in evolution. From it I have gained a more enlightened perspective of how and why the female body functions - for example: why female primates (including human females) tend to deposit extra fat and why females develop osteoporosis. The cross-cultural life-histories of women discussed in The Evolving Female are fascinating and invaluable. Life-histories of non-human primates add additional depth to the text. This is a must read for all women and all students of evolution!