Mosaic Evolution of Subterranean Mammals: Regression, Progression, and Global Convergence - Hardcover

Nevo, Eviatar

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198575726 ISBN 13: 9780198575726

Verlag: OUP Oxford, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

Life underground has evolved among different groups of mammals all over the globe. It is an extraordinary environment - with relatively constant temperature, few opportunities to meet organisms other than the immediate family, and a completely different sensory environment. Locomotion, communication, food-finding, navigation, circadian rhythms, and indeed the whole of the animals' physiology may be specialized to cope with underground life. From burrowing to blindness, magnetic communication to the weird bee-like eusociality of naked mole rats, specialization has been extreme - and, in turn, has led to speciation in a whole range of new contexts. That the subterranean way of life occurs in different species of mammals across the globe has provided scientists with one of nature's best studied global evolutionary demonstrations of adaptive radiation and speciation. The revolution in molecular biology that has occurred over the last ten years has massively expanded these horizons, allowing scientists to explore, map, and clone the genes underlying the basis of adaptation and speciation and translate their fascinating structural and functional evolution into genes and genomic language. This book draws together the burgeoning literature about all aspects of the biology of subterranean mammals. Beginning with their evolutionary history and the processes that led to the subterranean way of life, the author goes on to review ecology, behaviour, and physiology within the context of the highly stressful subterranean context, consider the specializations that have evolved in response, and then to compare the 11 families of extant subterranean mammals. The extraordinary circumstances surrounding subterranean mammals present a unique, global, 'natural experiment' in evolution that has implications throughout biology. As such this comprehensive survey will stand as an invaluable reference in years to come.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Address for correspondence: Professor Eviatar Nevo, Director, Institute of Evolution, University of Haifa, Haifa, 31905, Israel. Tel 972 4 8240448 Fax 972 4 8246554 email nevo@research.haifa.ac.il

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: OUP Oxford
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1999
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0198575726
• ISBN 13: 9780198575726
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 448
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Ufficio Anagrafiche Messaggerie; ufficio.anagrafiche@meli.it; ; Via Verdi, 8; Assago Milano; 20090; Italien