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How and Why Species Multiply: The Radiation of Darwin's Finches
Charles Darwin's experiences in the Galápagos Islands in 1835 helped to guide his thoughts toward a revolutionary theory: that species were not fixed but diversified from their ancestors over many generations, and that the driving mechanism of evolutionary change was natural selection. In this concise, accessible book, Peter and Rosemary Grant explain what we have learned about the origin and evolution of new species through the study of the finches made famous by that great scientist: Darwin's finches.
Drawing upon their unique observations of finch evolution over a thirty-four-year period, the Grants trace the evolutionary history of fourteen different species from a shared ancestor three million years ago. They show how repeated cycles of speciation involved adaptive change through natural selection on beak size and shape, and divergence in songs. They explain other factors that drive finch evolution, including geographical isolation, which has kept the Gal�pagos relatively free of competitors and predators; climate change and an increase in the number of islands over the last three million years, which enhanced opportunities for speciation; and flexibility in the early learning of feeding skills, which helped species to exploit new food resources. Throughout, the Grants show how the laboratory tools of developmental biology and molecular genetics can be combined with observations and experiments on birds in the field to gain deeper insights into why the world is so biologically rich and diverse.
Written by two preeminent evolutionary biologists, How and Why Species Multiply helps to answer fundamental questions about evolution--in the Gal�pagos and throughout the world.
Drawing upon their unique observations of finch evolution over a thirty-four-year period, the Grants trace the evolutionary history of fourteen different species from a shared ancestor three million years ago. They show how repeated cycles of speciation involved adaptive change through natural selection on beak size and shape, and divergence in songs. They explain other factors that drive finch evolution, including geographical isolation, which has kept the Gal�pagos relatively free of competitors and predators; climate change and an increase in the number of islands over the last three million years, which enhanced opportunities for speciation; and flexibility in the early learning of feeding skills, which helped species to exploit new food resources. Throughout, the Grants show how the laboratory tools of developmental biology and molecular genetics can be combined with observations and experiments on birds in the field to gain deeper insights into why the world is so biologically rich and diverse.
Written by two preeminent evolutionary biologists, How and Why Species Multiply helps to answer fundamental questions about evolution--in the Gal�pagos and throughout the world.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published October 22, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
notable
April 20, 2021It was objectively, and therefore, incontrovertibly proven in 1981 by the mating and production of fertile offspring (the descendants of which are still alive today) by a large cactus finch and a small ground finch that "Darwin's finches" are mere varieties (as members of distinct species cannot interbreed and produce fertile offspring) and not distinct species, as presumed by John Gould. Therefore, the premise of this book is completely invalid. And what the commonly illustrated finch diversity pie chart represents is phenotypic variation within a species and not a multiplicity of distinct species.
July 19, 2013
Grant and Grant, researchers in the Galapagos islands for decades, greatly condensed their material and applied it to the broader question of the process of speciation (the formation of new species). Primarily through the lens of their own work on Darwin's finches, they construct a model of speciation that combines behavioral, ecological, geographical, and genetic factors. Perhaps the principal takeaway from this book is that evolution must be studied through multiple disciplines; natural selection alone cannot tell a complete story.
Much of this book is intelligible to readers with a limited scientific background. The authors are usually aware of a diverse reading audience. Furthermore, a large glossary assists the novice while leaving the body text uncluttered. At points, though, I expect most readers will be quite out of their depth. Fortunately, each chapter ends with a summary that distills the most salient points.
As a bonus, it contains about 30 pages of helpful and gorgeous photographs of the Galapagos islands and their inhabitants. I wish these photos had been placed closer to the beginning of the book, so I would have been able to picture the various species better from the outset.
Overall, this is a very informative book, but it still felt a bit too much like a book on Darwin's finches that was later tipped in the direction of addressing speciation rather than a book that set out at the beginning to address speciation systematically.
Much of this book is intelligible to readers with a limited scientific background. The authors are usually aware of a diverse reading audience. Furthermore, a large glossary assists the novice while leaving the body text uncluttered. At points, though, I expect most readers will be quite out of their depth. Fortunately, each chapter ends with a summary that distills the most salient points.
As a bonus, it contains about 30 pages of helpful and gorgeous photographs of the Galapagos islands and their inhabitants. I wish these photos had been placed closer to the beginning of the book, so I would have been able to picture the various species better from the outset.
Overall, this is a very informative book, but it still felt a bit too much like a book on Darwin's finches that was later tipped in the direction of addressing speciation rather than a book that set out at the beginning to address speciation systematically.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews