The Darwinian tourist : viewing the world through evolutionary eyes / Christopher Wills ; with photographs by the author.

ISBN:

9780191612961

9780199584383

Title:

The Darwinian tourist : viewing the world through evolutionary eyes / Christopher Wills ; with photographs by the author.

Author:

Wills, Christopher, author.

Personal Author:

Wills, Christopher, author.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 345 pages) : color illustrations

Contents:

The living world. Shape-shifters ; The inner workings of evolution ; The shifting earth ; Crucibles of speciation ; Rainforests, diseases, and speciation -- The human story. How domesticated animals changed the world ; The great migration ; The San and the Hobbits -- A final postcard.v.

Subject Term:

Evolution (Biology) -- Popular works.

Ecology -- Popular works.

Voyages and travels.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

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Publication Date:

2010

Publication Information:

Oxford ;

New York :

Oxford University Press,

2010.

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
576.8	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

In this magnificently illustrated book, Christopher Wills takes us on a series of adventures. From the underwater life of Indonesia's Lambeh Strait to a little valley in northern Israel, to an earthquake in the coral reef off the island of Yap and the dry valleys of western Mongolia, Wills demonstrates how ecology and evolution have interacted to yield the world we live in.Each chapter features a different location and brings out a different and important message. With the author's own stunning photographs of the wildlife he discovered on his travels, he draws out the evolutionary stories behind the wildlife and shows how our understanding of the living world can be deepened by a Darwinian perspective. Wills demonstrates how looking at the world with evolutionary eyes leaves us with a renewed sense of wonder about life's astounding present-day diversity, alongwith an appreciation of our evolutionary history.

Author Notes

Christopher Wills is Professor of Biological Sciences and member of the Center for Molecular Genetics at the University of California. He received the Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology from the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1999. His research interests include the maintenance of genetic variability in human populations, the forces that maintain variation in complex ecosystems such as rainforests and coral reefs, theevolution of diseases, and the evolution of our species.

Reviews (2)

Choice Review

What Darwin saw on his voyage around the world in the mid-1830s greatly enhanced his knowledge of how animals and plants existed, and led to his developing hypotheses as to how they had changed. Wills (Univ. of California, San Diego), an experienced evolutionary biologist, uses some of his own international travel and research efforts to show how, through evolution and migration, plants and animals worldwide have changed and how they currently live. In a rather eclectic set of chapters covering selected sea animals and various terrestrial areas, some of which have been subjects of intensive evolutionary study, he examines the effects of earthquakes, the distribution of continents as a result of plate tectonics, the effects of extinction, speciation, etc. A significant section examines human origins and migrations, especially movement to Indonesia and Australia, with a culminating chapter on the fossil "Hobbit" of the island of Flores. The book is replete with beautiful full-color photographs of fauna and flora along with vistas of the lands about which Wills writes. This is not a textbook, and although the text is sometimes a bit wordy, it can be read by a wide audience seeking an introduction to the causes of diversity and distribution. Summing Up: Recommended. All general and academic audiences. D. Bardack emeritus, University of Illinois at Chicago

Library Journal Review

Wills (biological sciences, Univ. of California-San Diego), author of the best-selling The Runaway Brain: The Evolution of Human Uniqueness, offers an armchair world ecotour to the nth degree. Drawing on a career that involved visiting special places across the globe (with a heavy emphasis on Australasia), Wills explores flora and fauna from the perspective of figure (specific plants and animals) and ground (the ecosystems they inhabit and interact with) using the lens of evolutionary biology via known fossil and molecular records. He clearly explains through vivid examples why the world has its diversity today and why diversity matters and needs preservation. VERDICT The reader does not need a background in genetics or ecology to appreciate this last lecture-style book, but the storytelling of evolutionary biology is more palatable than the stories of Wills's travels. Chock-full of wonderful photographs, this book is strongly recommended for readers seeking insight into their world and the ecological places they visit.-James A. Buczynski, Seneca Coll. of Applied Arts & Tech, Toronto (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.