Ecological Genetics

Description

This book describes the experimental study of evolution and adaptation, carried out by means of combined field-work and laboratory genetics. That technique has been developed during the last forty years or so by my colleagues and myself, and by a small but increasing number of geneticists throughout the world. In discussing what has been achieved by these means many relevant pieces of work familiar to me have been omitted, while doubtless there are others that have escaped my attention. To those who have thus laboured without recognition here, I offer my apologies. Yet I would not include further examples were I writing again, and this for two reasons. First, my aim is not to produce a com­ pendium in the German fashion, for I have endeavoured to develop principles with enough instances to illustrate them but no more. Secondly, this book is in danger of becoming too long as it is: one which is in general consulted only in libraries, not read familiarly by students. Front Matter....Pages i-xx Ecological Genetics....Pages 1-11 Numerical Changes in Animal Populations....Pages 12-35 Genetic Drift and the Founder Principle....Pages 36-47 Polygenic Characters Evolving in Isolation....Pages 48-77 Sympatric Evolution....Pages 78-108 The Theory of Genetic Polymorphism....Pages 109-136 Balanced Polymorphism in Panaxia Dominula ....Pages 137-156 Polymorphism and the Effects of the Switch-Gene....Pages 157-191 Polymorphism and the Super-gene in Snails....Pages 192-217 The Heterostyle-Homostyle System....Pages 218-233 Chromosome Polymorphism....Pages 234-249 Mimicry....Pages 250-283 Papilio dardanus and the Evolution of Mimicry....Pages 284-313 Transient Polymorphism and Melanism....Pages 314-354 Isolation and Adaptation....Pages 355-389 Conclusion....Pages 390-393 Back Matter....Pages 394-442