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The authors also provide a comparative survey of the properties of genomes (genome size, gene families, synteny, and polymorphism) for prokaryotes as well as the main eukaryotic models.
Our understanding of human evolution is proceeding at an unprecedented rate over the last years due to spectacular fossil finds, reconstructions based on genome comparison, ancient DNA sequencing and new insights into developmental genetics. This book takes an integrative approach in which the development of the human embryo, the evolutionary history of our body, the structure of human populations, their dispersal over the world and their cultures are examined by integrating paleoanthropology, developmental biology, comparative zoology, population genetics and phylogenetic reconstruction. The authors discuss questions like: - What do we know about ancient humans? - What happens in the development of an embryo? - How did we manage to walk upright and why did we lose our hair? - What is the relationship between language, migration and evolution? - How does our body respond to the challenges of modern society? In addition to being a core text for the study of the life sciences, 'Human Evolution and Development' is an easy-to-read overview for the interested layperson.
"Soil invertebrates consist of a great variety of body plans and life-forms, since about every phylum of the animal kingdom has at least some representatives in the soil, while some are almost exclusively soil-living. All soil invertebrates descend from originally marine ancestors that have undergone many independent terrestrializations. In addition, several lineages that became fully terrestrial in their later evolution have adopted a secondary soil-living life-style. Upon all these life-forms, the soil environment has imposed similar conditions relating to space, humidity, temperature gradients and microbial communities. As a consequence we see many similar adaptations, both in reproductive biology and life-history, but also in physiology and molecular responses. The soil invertebrate community is an example par excellence of convergent and parallel evolution"--
Researchers in the field of ecological genomics aim to determine how a genome or a population of genomes interacts with its environment across ecological and evolutionary timescales. Ecological genomics is trans-disciplinary by nature. Ecologists have turned to genomics to be able to elucidate the mechanistic bases of the biodiversity their research tries to understand. Genomicists have turned to ecology in order to better explain the functional cellular and molecular variation they observed in their model organisms. We provide an advanced-level book that covers this recent research and proposes future development for this field. A synthesis of the field of ecological genomics emerges from t...
Is Nature Ever Evil?, considers the different ways in which reality is understood between the disciplines of ethics, religion and science focusing on the ethical evaluation of nature itself.
Many industrialized and developing countries are faced with the assessment of potential risks associated with contaminated land. A variety of human activities have left their impacts on soils in the form of elevated and locally high concentrations of potential toxicants. In several cases sources have not yet been stopped and contamination continues. Decisions on the management of contaminated sites and on the regulation of chemicals in the terrestrial environment require information on the extent to which toxicants adversely affect the life support function of soils. Ecological insights into the soil as an ecosystem may support such decisions. This book reviews the latest ecological principles that should be considered in this respect.
This book focuses on chemicals that effect aggregation for mating and elicit sexual behavior in insects, mites, and ticks, mainly on "sex pheromonal" or "mating" activity. These pheromones are useful to both agriculture science and industry because of their potential as detection and control agents.
Highlights new research on developments in the rapidly advancing areas of genomics and proteomics, with particular emphasis on placing these fields in an evolutionary context. Topics incude systems biology, the origin of genes and lateral gene transfer, gene regulation and gene dispensability, proteome complexity, genomic immune systems, sex-biased genomic expression, sex chromosome evolution, gene and protein network evolution, adaptive genome evolution, and human evolutional genomics.
This book provides a comprehensive examination of all aspects of the ecotoxicology of soil organisms. The book explains how contaminants reach the soil, traces their transport through the soil, and then moves on to examine the effects of contaminants on different groups of soil organisms (e.g., microorganisms, micro- and mesofauna, larger soil animals including vertebrates). The book also considers food chain transfer and discusses risk assessment procedures that are specific to soil conditions. Ecotoxicology of Soil Organisms is the only book to take such a sweeping approach toward soil ecotoxicology.