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Darwinism (book)
''Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection with Some of Its Applications'' is an 1889 book on evolution by Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer of evolution by natural selection together with Charles Darwin. This was a book Wallace wrote as a defensive response to the scientific critics of natural selection. Of all Wallace's books, it is cited by scholarly publications the most. Synopsis In ''Darwinism'' fifteen chapters, Alfred Russel Wallace sets out his understanding of the theory of evolution by natural selection. He begins by defining "species", discussing creationism, opinion before Charles Darwin, and Darwin's theory. He then describes the Malthusian struggle for existence, given the ability of organisms to reproduce in a world of finite resources. He explains the importance of variability within species, giving examples. He describes variation in domesticated animals and cultivated plants, and the process of artificial selection by breeders. Wall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darwinism 1889 Title Page
Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. Also called Darwinian theory, it originally included the broad concepts of transmutation of species or of evolution which gained general scientific acceptance after Darwin published ''On the Origin of Species'' in 1859, including concepts which predated Darwin's theories. English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the term ''Darwinism'' in April 1860. Terminology Darwinism subsequently referred to the specific concepts of natural selection, the Weismann barrier, or the central dogma of molecular biology. Though the term usually refers strictly to biological evolution, creationists have appropriated it to refer to the origin of life or to cosmic evolution, that are di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biogeography
Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area.Brown University, "Biogeography." Accessed February 24, 2014. . Phytogeography is the branch of biogeography that studies the distribution of plants. Zoogeography is the branch that studies distribution of animals. Mycogeography is the branch that studies distribution of fungi, such as mushrooms. Knowledge of spatial variation in the numbers and types of organisms is as vital to us today as it was to our early human ancestors, as we adapt to heterogeneous but geographically predictable environments. Biogeography is an integrative field of inquiry that unites concepts and information from ecology, evolutionary biology, taxonomy, geology, physical geography, palaeontology, and climatology.Dansereau, Pierre. 1957 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ulrich Kutschera
Ulrich Kutschera (born 2 February 1955) is a former German professor of biology who works as an academic advisor at I-Cultiver, Inc. in San Francisco and as a visiting scientist in Stanford/Palo Alto, California, US. He is the founder and head of "AK Evolutionbiologie", an association of evolutionary biologists in Germany. Starting in the 2000s, Kutschera started engaging with the public, first as a critic of creationism and intelligent design. Since the mid-2010s, his public statements and popular books focused on climate skepticism and criticism of gender studies. Education and career Kutschera completed his undergraduate studies (biology/chemistry; theory of music) at the University of Freiburg, Germany, receiving a MS in zoology and evolutionary biology. In 1985, he received a doctorate degree (PhD) in plant physiology. His thesis (summa cum laude) was awarded the Pfizer Research Award (Germany) in 1986. Between 1985 and 1988, Kutschera was the recipient of a Humboldt-fellow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neo-Darwinism
Neo-Darwinism is generally used to describe any integration of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection with Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics. It mostly refers to evolutionary theory from either 1895 (for the combinations of Darwin's and August Weismann's theories of evolution) or 1942 ( "modern synthesis"), but it can mean any new Darwinian- and Mendelian-based theory, such as the current evolutionary theory. Original use Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, as published in 1859, provided a selection mechanism for evolution, but not a trait transfer mechanism. Lamarckism was still a very popular candidate for this. August Weismann and Alfred Russel Wallace rejected the Lamarckian idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics that Darwin had accepted and later expanded upon in his writings on heredity. The basis for the complete rejection of Lamarckism was Weismann's germ plasm theory. Weismann realised that the cells that produce the germ plasm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Romanes
George John Romanes FRS (20 May 1848 – 23 May 1894) was a Canadian-Scots evolutionary biologist and physiologist who laid the foundation of what he called comparative psychology, postulating a similarity of cognitive processes and mechanisms between humans and other animals. He was the youngest of Charles Darwin's academic friends, and his views on evolution are historically important. He is considered to invent the term neo-Darwinism, which in the late 19th century was considered as a theory of evolution that focuses on natural selection as the main evolutionary force. However, Samuel Butler used this term with a similar meaning in 1880. Romanes' early death was a loss to the cause of evolutionary biology in Britain. Within six years Mendel's work was rediscovered, and a whole new agenda opened up for debate. Early life George Romanes was born in Kingston, Canada West (now Ontario), in 1848, the youngest of three children, all boys, in a well-to-do and intellectually ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inheritance Of Acquired Characteristics
Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also called the inheritance of acquired characteristics or more recently soft inheritance. The idea is named after the French zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), who incorporated the classical era theory of soft inheritance into his theory of evolution as a supplement to his concept of orthogenesis, a drive towards complexity. Introductory textbooks contrast Lamarckism with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. However, Darwin's book ''On the Origin of Species'' gave credence to the idea of heritable effects of use and disuse, as Lamarck had done, and his own concept of pangenesis similarly implied soft inheritance. Many researchers from the 1860s onwards attempted to find evidence for Lamarckian inheritance, but the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Germ Plasm
Germ plasm () is a biological concept developed in the 19th century by the German biologist August Weismann. It states that heritable information is transmitted only by germ cells in the gonads (ovaries and testes), not by somatic cells. The related idea that information cannot pass from somatic cells to the germ line, contrary to Lamarckism, is called the Weismann barrier. To some extent this theory anticipated the development of modern genetics. History The term ''Keimplasma'' (germ plasm) was first used by the German biologist, August Weismann (1834–1914), and described in his 1892 book ''Das Keimplasma: eine Theorie der Vererbung'' (The Germ Plasm: a theory of inheritance). His theory states that multicellular organisms consist of germ cells that contain and transmit heritable information, and somatic cells which carry out ordinary bodily functions. In the germ plasm theory, inheritance in a multicellular organism only takes place by means of the germ cells: the gametes, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
August Weismann
August Friedrich Leopold Weismann FRS (For), HonFRSE, LLD (17 January 18345 November 1914) was a German evolutionary biologist. Fellow German Ernst Mayr ranked him as the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin. Weismann became the Director of the Zoological Institute and the first Professor of Zoology at Freiburg. His main contribution involved germ plasm theory, at one time also known as Weismannism,Romanes, George John. ''An examination of Weismannism''. The Open court publishing company in Chicago 189/ref> according to which inheritance (in a multicellular animal) only takes place by means of the germ cells—the gametes such as egg cells and sperm cells. Other cells of the body—somatic cells—do not function as agents of heredity. The effect is one-way: germ cells produce somatic cells and are not affected by anything the somatic cells learn or therefore any ability an individual acquires during its life. Genetic information c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ornithophily
Ornithophily or bird pollination is the pollination of flowering plants by birds. This sometimes (but not always) coevolutionary association is derived from insect pollination (entomophily) and is particularly well developed in some parts of the world, especially in the tropics, Southern Africa, and on some island chains. The association involves several distinctive plant adaptations forming a "pollination syndrome". The plants typically have colourful, often red, flowers with long tubular structures holding ample nectar and orientations of the stamen and stigma that ensure contact with the pollinator. Birds involved in ornithophily tend to be specialist nectarivores with brushy tongues and long bills, that are either capable of hovering flight or light enough to perch on the flower structures. Plant adaptations Plant adaptations for ornithophily can be grouped primarily into those that attract and facilitate pollen transfer by birds, and those that exclude other groups, primaril ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coevolution
In biology, coevolution occurs when two or more species reciprocally affect each other's evolution through the process of natural selection. The term sometimes is used for two traits in the same species affecting each other's evolution, as well as gene-culture coevolution. Charles Darwin mentioned evolutionary interactions between flowering plants and insects in ''On the Origin of Species'' (1859). Although he did not use the word coevolution, he suggested how plants and insects could evolve through reciprocal evolutionary changes. Naturalists in the late 1800s studied other examples of how interactions among species could result in reciprocal evolutionary change. Beginning in the 1940s, plant pathologists developed breeding programs that were examples of human-induced coevolution. Development of new crop plant varieties that were resistant to some diseases favored rapid evolution in pathogen populations to overcome those plant defenses. That, in turn, required the development of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scalenus
''Scalenus'' is an Old World genus of round-necked longhorn beetles of the subfamily Cerambycinae. Species '' Scalenus auricomus'' (Ritsema, 1890) '' Scalenus borneensis'' Bentanachs & Drouin, 2014 ''Scalenus cingalensis'' (White, 1855) ''Scalenus fasciatipennis'' (Waterhouse, 1885) ''Scalenus fulvus'' (Bates, 1879) ''Scalenus hefferni'' Bentanachs & Jiroux, 2018 ''Scalenus hemipterus'' (Olivier, 1795) ''Scalenus kalimantanensis'' Bentanachs & Jiroux, 2018 ''Scalenus pejchai'' Bentanachs & Jiroux, 2018 ''Scalenus philippensis'' Bentanachs & Drouin, 2014 ''Scalenus sericeus'' (Saunders, 1853) ''Scalenus skalei'' Bentanachs & Jiroux, 2018 ''Scalenus ysmaeli ''Scalenus'' is an Old World genus of round-necked longhorn beetles of the subfamily Cerambycinae. Species '' Scalenus auricomus'' (Ritsema, 1890) '' Scalenus borneensis'' Bentanachs & Drouin, 2014 ''Scalenus cingalensis'' (White, 1855) ''Sc ...'' Hüdepohl, 1987 References Callichromatini {{Callichromatini ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Batesian Mimicry
Batesian mimicry is a form of mimicry where a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a predator of them both. It is named after the English naturalist Henry Walter Bates, after his work on butterflies in the rainforests of Brazil. Batesian mimicry is the most commonly known and widely studied of mimicry complexes, such that the word mimicry is often treated as synonymous with Batesian mimicry. There are many other forms however, some very similar in principle, others far separated. It is often contrasted with Müllerian mimicry, a form of mutually beneficial convergence between two or more harmful species. However, because the mimic may have a degree of protection itself, the distinction is not absolute. It can also be contrasted with functionally different forms of mimicry. Perhaps the sharpest contrast here is with aggressive mimicry where a predator or parasite mimics a harmless species, avoiding detection and improving its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
