VOLES, MOLARS, AND MOLECULES: INTEGRATING QUANTITATIVE MORPHOLOGY, GENETICS, AND EVO-DEVO TO STUDY EVOLUTIONARY PROCESSES

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert W. Burroughs ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca M. Price ◽  
Kathryn E. Perez

A paradigm shift away from viewing evolution primarily in terms of adaptation – the “adaptationist programme” of Gould and Lewontin – began in evolutionary research more than 35 years ago, but that shift has yet to occur within evolutionary education research or within teaching standards. We review three instruments that can help education researchers and educators undertake this paradigm shift. The instruments assess how biology undergraduates understand three evolutionary processes other than natural selection: genetic drift, dominance relationships among allelic pairs, and evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). Testing with these instruments reveals that students often explain a diversity of evolutionary mechanisms incorrectly by invoking misconceptions about natural selection. We propose that increasing the emphasis on teaching evolutionary processes other than natural selection could result in a better understanding of natural selection and a better understanding of all evolutionary processes. Finally, we propose two strategies for accomplishing this goal, interleaving natural selection with other evolutionary processes and the development of bridging analogies to describe evolutionary concepts.


Diabetes ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 271-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. Milner ◽  
P. K. Wirdnam ◽  
J. Tsanakas

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-118
Author(s):  
Damien D. Nouvel

While Dubai's urban scene is dominated by planned and pre-designed developments, grassroots initiatives have always been present and have helped shape the trajectory of the city's evolution. In one case, an industrial area, Al Quoz, has seen the clustering of art businesses over a relatively short period turning it into a cultural destination. Accounting for most of such clustering, Alserkal Avenue became Dubai's art hot-spot that changed the cultural map of the city. This article describes the rise of Alserkal Avenue, not only as the result of the entrepreneurial action of the proprietors but also as a product of a complex melange of economic, cultural, and urban evolutionary processes that intertwine with the rise of the city itself.


Author(s):  
Stéphane Schmitt

The problem of the repeated parts of organisms was at the center of the biological sciences as early as the first decades of the 19th century. Some concepts and theories (e.g., serial homology, unity of plan, or colonial theory) introduced in order to explain the similarity as well as the differences between the repeated structures of an organism were reused throughout the 19th and the 20th century, in spite of the fundamental changes during this long period that saw the diffusion of the evolutionary theory, the rise of experimental approaches, and the emergence of new fields and disciplines. Interestingly, this conceptual heritage was at the core of any attempt to unify the problems of inheritance, development, and evolution, in particular in the last decades, with the rise of “evo-devo.” This chapter examines the conditions of this theoretical continuity and the challenges it brings out for the current evolutionary sciences.


Author(s):  
Alan C. Love

Many researchers have argued that evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) constitutes a challenge to standard evolutionary theory, requiring the explicit inclusion of developmental processes that generate variation and attention to organismal form (rather than adaptive function). An analysis of these developmental-form challenges indicates that the primary concern is not the inclusion of specific content but the epistemic organization or structure of evolutionary theory. Proponents of developmental-form challenges favor moving their considerations to a more central location in evolutionary theorizing, in part because of a commitment to the value of mechanistic explanation. This chapter argues there are multiple legitimate structures for evolutionary theory, instead of a single, overarching or canonical organization, and different theory presentations can be understood as idealizations that serve different investigative and explanatory goals in evolutionary inquiry.


Author(s):  
Andrew Clarke

This introduces the subject, laying out the organisation of the book and emphasising the importance of both simple underlying physical mechanisms and evolutionary variability to thermal ecology. It distinguishes physical mechanism from statistical description, and the importance of evolutionary processes in comparisons across species.


1942 ◽  
Vol 76 (765) ◽  
pp. 337-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. B. Babcock ◽  
G. L. Stebbins, ◽  
J. A. Jenkins

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