Climatic Niches in Phylogenetic Comparative Studies: a Review Of
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Molecular Homology and Multiple-Sequence Alignment: an Analysis of Concepts and Practice
CSIRO PUBLISHING Australian Systematic Botany, 2015, 28, 46–62 LAS Johnson Review http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/SB15001 Molecular homology and multiple-sequence alignment: an analysis of concepts and practice David A. Morrison A,D, Matthew J. Morgan B and Scot A. Kelchner C ASystematic Biology, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18D, Uppsala 75236, Sweden. BCSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, GPO Box 1700, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia. CDepartment of Biology, Utah State University, 5305 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-5305, USA. DCorresponding author. Email: [email protected] Abstract. Sequence alignment is just as much a part of phylogenetics as is tree building, although it is often viewed solely as a necessary tool to construct trees. However, alignment for the purpose of phylogenetic inference is primarily about homology, as it is the procedure that expresses homology relationships among the characters, rather than the historical relationships of the taxa. Molecular homology is rather vaguely defined and understood, despite its importance in the molecular age. Indeed, homology has rarely been evaluated with respect to nucleotide sequence alignments, in spite of the fact that nucleotides are the only data that directly represent genotype. All other molecular data represent phenotype, just as do morphology and anatomy. Thus, efforts to improve sequence alignment for phylogenetic purposes should involve a more refined use of the homology concept at a molecular level. To this end, we present examples of molecular-data levels at which homology might be considered, and arrange them in a hierarchy. The concept that we propose has many levels, which link directly to the developmental and morphological components of homology. -
The Worldviews of Stephen Jay Gould an Overview of the Themes That Appear in Gould’S Writings Lawrence N
The Worldviews of Stephen Jay Gould An Overview of the Themes that Appear in Gould’s Writings Lawrence N. Goeller, Alexandria VA December 2011 The Academic Nature of Worldviews ................................................................................ 1 Pre-Darwinian Worldviews ................................................................................................ 2 Darwin’s Worldview ........................................................................................................... 5 Mendel, Population Genetics, and the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis .......................... 13 Punctuated Equilibrium .................................................................................................... 18 Adaptationism and the Spandrels of San Marco ............................................................... 22 Reductionism, Selfish Genes, and Evolutionary Psychology ........................................... 27 Hierarchical Evolution ...................................................................................................... 30 Catastrophe and Mass Extinction ...................................................................................... 34 Trends in Natural History ................................................................................................. 37 Gould on Science, Creationism, the Humanities, and Religion ........................................ 43 Summary .......................................................................................................................... -
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution in Sharks and Fishes Juan Andrés López Iowa State University
Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2003 Molecular phylogenetics and evolution in sharks and fishes Juan Andrés López Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the Zoology Commons Recommended Citation López, Juan Andrés, "Molecular phylogenetics and evolution in sharks and fishes " (2003). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 729. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/729 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Molecular phylogenedcs and evolution in sharks and Bshes by Juan Andres L6pez A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Program of Study Committee: Gavin J. P. Naylor, Major Professor Drenna Dobbs Frederick Janzen Christopher Tuggle Jonathan Wendel Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2003 UMI Number: 3118243 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. -
Evolutionary Developmental Biology and Human Language Evolution: Constraints on Adaptation
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Crossref Evol Biol (2012) 39:613–637 DOI 10.1007/s11692-012-9162-y SYNTHESIS PAPER Evolutionary Developmental Biology and Human Language Evolution: Constraints on Adaptation W. Tecumseh Fitch Received: 2 January 2012 / Accepted: 24 January 2012 / Published online: 7 March 2012 Ó The Author(s) 2012. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract A tension has long existed between those development, to gain a richer understanding of the princi- biologists who emphasize the importance of adaptation by ples that underlie human language evolution. natural selection and those who highlight the role of phy- logenetic and developmental constraints on organismal Keywords Evo-devo Á Language evolution Á form and function. This contrast has been particularly Adaptation Á Exaptation Á Constraints Á Spandrel Á noticeable in recent debates concerning the evolution of Phenotypic plasticity human language. Darwin himself acknowledged the exis- tence and importance of both of these, and a long line of biologists have followed him in seeing, in the concept of Introduction ‘‘descent with modification’’, a framework naturally able to incorporate both adaptation and constraint. Today, the Although our brain represents the main adaptive feature of integrated perspective of modern evolutionary develop- our species, what it is adapted to is not clear at all. mental biology (‘‘evo-devo’’) allows a more subtle and Franc¸ois Jacob (1977) pluralistic approach to these traditional questions, and has provided several examples where the traditional notion of After many years of neglect, the evolution of human ‘‘constraint’’ can be cashed out in specific, mechanistic language has recently become a very active field of inter- terms. -
1 Wonderful Life Revisited: Chance and Contingency in the Ediacaran-Cambrian Radiation Douglas H. Erwin Department of Paleobiolo
Wonderful Life Revisited: Chance and contingency in the Ediacaran-Cambrian radiation Douglas H. Erwin Department of Paleobiology MRC-121 National Museum of Natural History P.O. Box 37012 Washington, D.C. 20013-7012 [email protected] Keywords: Burgess Shale, Cambrian, Ediacaran, contingency, macroevolution ABSTRACT - In his 1989 book Wonderful Life Stephen Jay Gould employed the fossils of the middle Cambrian Burgess Shale to argue for a pervasive role of contingency in the history of life. But Gould wrote at the advent of an explosion of research in the Ediacaran-Cambrian diversification of animals, before ‘tree-thinking’ had made great inroads into the reconstruction of phylogeny, and with just the first glimmer of data on the remarkable conservation of developmental genes across major animal clades. More than twenty years on, not only have views of the Burgess Shale fossils undergone considerable change, but the role of contingency has become more widely accepted among paleobiologists. Yet much of Gould’s argument that if one ‘played the tape again’ the outcome would differ is difficult to accept. In this contribution I review new views of the Ediacaran-Cambrian explosion relevant to the role of chance in evolution as an example of a larger tension between historicity and laws in evolution. Introduction Although the importance of determinism versus chance was not one of the ‘eternal metaphors’ in Stephen Jay Gould’s essay of the same name (Gould, 1977), but it might well have been, for the debate over how much of the history of life is deterministic, the result of physical processes, scaling laws or various biological constraints, versus how much of it reflects either chance or just one of many possible evolutionary histories (contingency) dates at least to Darwin (Beatty, 2008). -
Title and Contents
Two Historical Investigations in Evolutionary Biology A Thesis SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Max W. Dresow IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE Dr. Emilie C. Snell-Rood October 2015 © Max Walter Dresow. 2015 Table of Contents The history of form and the forms of history: Stephen Jay Gould between D’Arcy Thompson and Charles Darwin…………………………………… 1 The problem of beginnings: “Mivart’s dilemma” and the direction of 19th century evolutionary studies.………………………………………………….65 Bibliography …………………………………………………………………………144 1. The history of form and the forms of history: Stephen Jay Gould between D’Arcy Thompson and Charles Darwin Max W. Dresow “Our greatest intellectual adventures often occur within ourselves—not in the restless search for new facts and new objects on the earth or in the stars, but from a need to expunge old prejudices and build new conceptual structures. No hunt can promise a sweeter reward, a more admirable goal, than the excitement of thoroughly revised understanding—the inward journey that thrills real scholars and scares the bejesus us out of the rest of us” (Gould 2001, p. 355). “Steve…was first and always a morphologist and developmentalist” (Eldredge 2013, p. 6). Introduction: Stephen Jay Gould and the science of form The story of Stephen Jay Gould’s evolutionary philosophy has yet to be fully told, because I suspect it cannot be fully told. For one thing, there is no univocal philosophy to which Gould’s name attaches (Ruse 1996, pp. 494-507, Thomas 2009). His views changed as he aged, not as a scaling-up of ancestral potentialities, but rather as a series of heterochronies involving both translocations and deletions. -
Jack Oyston Thesis Final Bind
University of Bath PHD Comparative Insights Into Convergent Evolution Oyston, Jack Award date: 2018 Awarding institution: University of Bath Link to publication Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 03. Oct. 2021 University of Bath PHD Comparative Insights Into Convergent Evolution Oyston, Jack Award date: 2018 Awarding institution: University of Bath Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research.