A chance mutation affecting a single or extremely few individuals in a continuous population will be quickly diluted through interbreeding. Charles Darwin fully appreciated this difficulty with ...relying on natural selection alone, and suggested an enabling role for geographical isolation in the origin of species. However, Darwin also believed in evolution by the inheritance of acquired traits and in populations of interbreeding animals, both of which would need a different isolating mechanism to overcome dilution and play a role in animal evolution. Historically disputed, the inheritance of acquired characters is now increasingly accepted as a phenomenon, and Charles Darwin himself is acknowledged as closely pre‐empting the type of physiology necessary to mediate it in his hypothesis of ‘pangenesis’. In this article, we question how the inheritance of acquired traits might overcome the problem of dilution by interbreeding and contribute to evolution. Specifically, we describe how Darwin's young protégé, George Romanes, developed ideas he discussed with Darwin and extended pangenesis to include a conceivable solution published after Darwin's death: physiological selection of fertility. In light of the ‘rediscovery’ of pangenesis, here we recount physiological selection as a testable hypothesis to explain how environmentally acquired characteristics could become coupled to the generation of species.
figure legend Physiological selection is shown as a series of causes and effects. An environmental change causes epigenetic responses in a large fraction of the population. A given epigenetic effect may have the direct or indirect consequence of impacting reproduction or fertility, such as by changing mating behaviour or post‐zygotic compatibility. If this effect on reproduction is positively discriminate, meaning exhibits some reference of like‐with‐like, either by trait‐bearing organisms differentially reproducing with other trait‐bearing organisms, or less‐so with non‐trait‐bearing organisms, then the population will begin to diverge into sub‐species with different phenotypes.
In Darwin's Fishes, Daniel Pauly presents an encyclopaedia of ichthyology, ecology and evolution, based upon everything that Charles Darwin ever wrote about fish. Entries are arranged alphabetically ...and can be about, for example, a particular fish taxon, an anatomical part, a chemical substance, a scientist, a place, or an evolutionary or ecological concept. The reader can start wherever they like and are then led by a series of cross-references on a fascinating voyage of interconnected entries, each indirectly or directly connected with original writings from Darwin himself. Along the way, the reader is offered interpretation of the historical material put in the context of both Darwin's time and that of contemporary biology and ecology. This book is intended for anyone interested in fishes, the work of Charles Darwin, evolutionary biology and ecology, and natural history in general.
Charles Darwin Martinez-Reina, Marlon
Resonance,
01/2022, Letnik:
27, Številka:
9
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) is one of the most brilliant minds in the history of science. This article proposes philatelic iconography to offer a didactic description of his life and work. The images ...are analyzed and related to relevant aspects of our character.
This volume is part of the definitive edition of letters written by and to Charles Darwin, the most celebrated naturalist of the nineteenth century. Notes and appendixes put these fascinating and ...wide-ranging letters in context, making the letters accessible to both scholars and general readers. Darwin depended on correspondence to collect data from all over the world and to discuss his emerging ideas with scientific colleagues, many of whom he never met in person. The letters are published chronologically: volume 20 includes letters from 1872, the year in which The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals was published, making ground-breaking use of photography. Also in this year, the sixth and final edition of On the Origin of Species was published and Darwin resumed his work on carnivorous plants and plant movement, finding unexpected similarities between the plant and animal kingdoms.
Darwin famously proposed that sexual competition and courtship is (or at least was) the driving force of "art" production not only in animals, but also in humans. The present book is the first to ...reveal that Darwin's hypothesis, rather than amounting to a full-blown antidote to the humanist tradition, is actually strongly informed both by classical rhetoric and by English and German philosophical aesthetics, thereby Darwin's theory far richer and more interesting for the understanding of poetry and song.The book also discusses how the three most discussed hypothetical functions of the human arts--competition for attention and (loving) acceptance, social cooperation, and self-enhancement--are not mutually exclusive, but can well be conceived of as different aspects of the same processes of producing and responding to the arts.Finally, reviewing the current state of archeological findings, the book advocates a new hypothesis on the multiple origins of the human arts, posing that they arose as new variants of human behavior, when three ancient and largely independent adaptions--sensory and sexual selection-driven biases regarding visual and auditory beauty, play behavior, and technology--joined forces with, and were transformed by, the human capacities for symbolic cognition and language.
The phylogenetic tree has been a core conceptual tool for evolutionary biology for nearly 200 years. This editorial explores the role of the tree as a metaphor, discussing two new PLOS Biology Essays ...that look to the future.
The Quotable Darwin Goodier, John
Reference Reviews,
06/2018, Letnik:
32, Številka:
5
Journal Article, Book Review
Recenzirano
This is a volume in an ongoing series of “Quotable” individuals; Jefferson and Thoreau are amongst the subjects. The subjects must have had a broad range of interests and to have left a substantial ...literature. They also have to be widely influential. I have not found a statement from the publisher that states this, but this is the impression I get from this book and what I know of the other subjects. The selector in this case is Janet Browne, the author of a two-volume biography of Charles Darwin (Browne, 1995/2002). There are other biographies of Darwin; I have yet to read one of them, but this book has at least got him on my “ought to read” list. Darwin is a good subject for this sort of book, as his life included exploration and travel on the Beagle and many years of semi-seclusion at Downe House. He wrote many books and very many letters. I say semi-seclusion; he had a large family and many visitors. He also wrote an autobiography.
Parasites: The Inside Story Hussein, Rezhan H
Emerging Infectious Diseases,
10/2023, Letnik:
29, Številka:
10
Journal Article, Book Review
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
An example is the migration of triatomine kissing bugs to the southern half of the United States, which might increase the risk for Trypanosoma cruzi transmission, causing Chagas disease (to which ...the book attributes Charles Darwin’s death, from an infection he acquired during a trip to South America). Parasites: The Inside Story Cite This Article DOI: 10.3201/eid2910.230235 Original Publication Date: September 11, 2023 Related Links * More Books and Media Articles Table of Contents – Volume 29, Number 10—October 2023 EID Search Options presentation_01 Advanced Article Search – Search articles by author and/or keyword. presentation_01 Articles by Country Search – Search articles by the topic country. presentation_01 Article Type Search – Search articles by article type and issue. September 20, 2023 The conclusions, findings, and opinions expressed by authors contributing to this journal do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Public Health Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the authors' affiliated institutions. Volume 29, Number 10—October 2023 Books and Media Parasites: The Inside Story On This Page Books and Media --- Cite This Article Figures Figure Downloads Article --- RIS TXT - 2 KB Article Metrics Metric Details Related Articles Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Seropositivity among Dromedary Camels, Algeria, 2020–2021 --- Detection of African Swine Fever Virus from Wild Boar, Singapore, 2023 --- Microfilaremic Dirofilaria repens Infection in Patient from Serbia --- More articles on Parasites Cite This Article Open modal Scott L. Gardner, Judy Diamond, Gabor R. Rácz Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 2022 ISBN-10: 0691206872; ISBN-13: 978-0691206875 Pages: 224; Price: US $29.95 (hardcover) Figure Parasites: The Inside Story Figure. An example is the migration of triatomine kissing bugs to the southern half of the United States, which might increase the risk for Trypanosoma cruzi transmission, causing Chagas disease (to which the book attributes Charles Darwin’s death, from an infection he acquired during a trip to South America).
Eukaryotes of the genus Plasmodium cause malaria, a parasitic disease responsible for substantial morbidity and mortality in humans. Yet, the nature and abundance of any viruses carried by these ...divergent eukaryotic parasites is unknown. We investigated the Plasmodium virome by performing a meta-transcriptomic analysis of blood samples taken from patients suffering from malaria and infected with P. vivax, P. falciparum or P. knowlesi. This resulted in the identification of a narnavirus-like sequence, encoding an RNA polymerase and restricted to P. vivax samples, as well as an associated viral segment of unknown function. These data, confirmed by PCR, are indicative of a novel RNA virus that we term Matryoshka RNA virus 1 (MaRNAV-1) to reflect its analogy to a "Russian doll": a virus, infecting a parasite, infecting an animal. Additional screening revealed that MaRNAV-1 was abundant in geographically diverse P. vivax derived from humans and mosquitoes, strongly supporting its association with this parasite, and not in any of the other Plasmodium samples analyzed here nor Anopheles mosquitoes in the absence of Plasmodium. Notably, related bi-segmented narnavirus-like sequences (MaRNAV-2) were retrieved from Australian birds infected with a Leucocytozoon-a genus of eukaryotic parasites that group with Plasmodium in the Apicomplexa subclass hematozoa. Together, these data support the establishment of two new phylogenetically divergent and genomically distinct viral species associated with protists, including the first virus likely infecting Plasmodium parasites. As well as broadening our understanding of the diversity and evolutionary history of the eukaryotic virosphere, the restriction to P. vivax may be of importance in understanding P. vivax-specific biology in humans and mosquitoes, and how viral co-infection might alter host responses at each stage of the P. vivax life-cycle.
Landscapes are becoming increasingly urbanized, causing loss and fragmentation of natural habitats, with potentially negative effects on biodiversity. Insects are among the organisms with the largest ...diversity in urbanized environments. Here, we sampled predator (Ampulicidae, Sphecidae and Crabronidae) and parasitoid (Tachinidae) flower-visiting insects in 36 sites in the city of Rome (Italy). Although the diversity of herbivorous insects in urban areas mostly depends on the availability of flowering plants and nesting sites, predators and parasitoids generally require a larger number of resources during their life cycle, and are expected to be particularly influenced by urbanization. As flower-visitors can easily move between habitat patches, the effect of urbanization was tested at multiple spatial scales (local, landscape and sub-regional). We found that urbanization influenced predator and parasitoid flower-visitors at all three spatial scales. At the local scale, streets and buildings negatively influenced evenness of predators and species richness and abundance of parasitoids probably acting as dispersal barrier. At the landscape scale, higher percentage of urban decreased predator abundance, while increasing their evenness, suggesting an increase in generalist and highly mobile species. Area and compactness (i.e. Contiguity index) of urban green interactively influenced predator communities, whereas evenness of parasitoids increased with increasing Contiguity index. At the sub-regional scale, species richness and abundance of predators increased with increasing distance from the city center. Compared to previous studies testing the effect of urbanization, we found little variation in species richness, abundance and evenness along our urbanization gradient. The current insect fauna has been probably selected for its tolerance to habitat loss and fragmentation, being the result of the intensive anthropogenic alteration occurred in the area in the last centuries. Conservation strategies aimed at predator and parasitoid flying insects have to take in account variables at multiple spatial-scales, as well as the complementarity of resources across the landscape.
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