The seemingly innocent observation that the activities of organisms bring about changes in environments is so obvious that it seems an unlikely focus for a new line of thinking about evolution. Yet niche construction--as this process of organism-driven environmental modification is known--has hidden complexities. By transforming biotic and abiotic sources of natural selection in external environments, niche construction generates feedback in evolution on a scale hitherto underestimated--and in a manner that transforms the evolutionary dynamic. It also plays a critical role in ecology, supporting ecosystem engineering and influencing the flow of energy and nutrients through ecosystems. Despite this, niche construction has been given short shrift in theoretical biology, in part because it cannot be fully understood within the framework of standard evolutionary theory.
 Wedding evolution and ecology, this book extends evolutionary theory by formally including niche construction and ecological inheritance as additional evolutionary processes. The authors support their historic move with empirical data, theoretical population genetics, and conceptual models. They also describe new research methods capable of testing the theory. They demonstrate how their theory can resolve long-standing problems in ecology, particularly by advancing the sorely needed synthesis of ecology and evolution, and how it offers an evolutionary basis for the human sciences.
 Already hailed as a pioneering work by some of the world's most influential biologists, this is a rare, potentially field-changing contribution to the biological sciences.

Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution (MPB-37) (Monographs in Population Biology, 37)

Science & Math

Odling-Smee, F. John

Feldman, Marcus W.

Lala, Kevin N.

Biological Sciences

Princeton University Press

A number of scholars have found that concepts such as mutation, selection, and random drift, which emerged from the theory of biological evolution, may also explain evolutionary phenomena in other disciplines as well. Drawing on these concepts, Professors Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman classify and systematize the various modes of transmitting "culture" and explore their consequences for cultural evolution. In the process, they develop a mathematical theory of the non-genetic transmission of cultural traits that provides a framework for future investigations in quantitative social and anthropological science.
 The authors use quantitative models that incorporate the various modes of transmission (for example, parent-child, peer-peer, and teacher-student), and evaluate data from sociology, archaeology, and epidemiology in terms of the models. They show that the various modes of transmission in conjunction with cultural and natural selection produce various rates of cultural evolution and various degrees of diversity within and between groups. The same framework can be used for explaining phenomena as apparently unrelated as linguistics, epidemics, social values and customs, and diffusion of innovations. The authors conclude that cultural transmission is an essential factor in the study of cultural change.

Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach. (MPB-16) (Monographs in Population Biology, 16)

Politics & Social Sciences

Cavalli-Sforza, L. L.

Social Sciences

Mathematical Evolutionary Theory (Princeton Legacy Library)

An international group of distinguished scientists presents an up-to-date survey of quantitative problems at the forefront of modern evolutionary theory. Their articles illustrate results from the latest research in population and behavioral genetics, molecular evolution, and ecology. Each author gives careful attention to the exposition of the models, the logic of their analysis, and the legitimacy of qualitative biological inferences. The topics covered include stochastic models of finite populations and the sorts of diffusion approximations that are valid for their study, models of migration, kin selection, geneculture coevolution, sexual selection, life-history evolution, the statistics of linkage disequilibrium, and the molecular evolution of repeated DNA sequences and the HLA system in humans.
The fourteen contributions are presented in two sections: Part I, Stochastic and Deterministic Genetic Theory, and Part II, Behavior, Ecology, and Evolutionary Genetics. Marcus W. Feldman provides an introduction to each part. The contributors are J. G. Bodmer, W. F. Bodmer, L. L. Cavalli Sforza, F. B. Christiansen, C. Cockerham, W. J. Ewens, M. W. Feldman, J. H. Gillespie, R. R. Hudson, N. L. Kaplan, S. Lessard, U. Liberman, M.E.N. Majerus, P. O'Donald, J. Roughgarden, S. Tavar, M. K. Uyenoyama, G. A. Watterson, and B. Weir.
Originally published in 1989.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

An international group of distinguished scientists presents an up-to-date survey of quantitative problems at the forefront of modern evolutionary theory. Their articles illustrate results from the latest research in population and behavioral genetics, molecular evolution, and ecology. Each author gives careful attention to the exposition of the models, the logic of their analysis, and the legitimacy of qualitative biological inferences. The topics covered include stochastic models of finite populations and the sorts of diffusion approximations that are valid for their study, models of migration, kin selection, geneculture coevolution, sexual selection, life-history evolution, the statistics of linkage disequilibrium, and the molecular evolution of repeated DNA sequences and the HLA system in humans. The fourteen contributions are presented in two sections: Part I, Stochastic and Deterministic Genetic Theory, and Part II, Behavior, Ecology, and Evolutionary Genetics. Marcus W. Feldman provides an introduction to each part. The contributors are J. G. Bodmer, W. F. Bodmer, L. L. Cavalli Sforza, F. B. Christiansen, C. Cockerham, W. J. Ewens, M. W. Feldman, J. H. Gillespie, R. R. Hudson, N. L. Kaplan, S. Lessard, U. Liberman, M.E.N. Majerus, P. O'Donald, J. Roughgarden, S. Tavar, M. K. Uyenoyama, G. A. Watterson, and B. Weir.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Feldman, Marcus W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Feldman, Marcus W.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Feldman, Marcus W.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Niche Construction: The Neglected Process in Evolution (MPB-37) (Monographs in Population Biology, 37)

Cultural Transmission and Evolution: A Quantitative Approach. (MPB-16) (Monographs in Population Biology, 16)

Mathematical Evolutionary Theory (Princeton Legacy Library)

Mathematical Evolutionary Theory (Princeton Legacy Library)