Plant Variation and Evolution

Portada
Cambridge University Press, 1997 M11 13 - 512 páginas
Natural populations of plants show intricate patterns of variation. European botanists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used this variation to classify different "kinds" into a hierachy of family, genus, and species. Although useful, these classifications were based on a belief in the fixity of species and the static patterns of variation. Darwin's theory of evolution changed this view; populations and species varied in time and space and were part of a continuing process of evolution. The development of molecular techniques has transformed our understanding of microevolution and the evolutionary history of the flowering plants. This revised, extended edition describes the historical background to plant variation studies and considers the remarkable insights that molecular biology has recently given into the processes of evolution in populations of cultivated, wild and weedy species; the threats of extinction faced by many endangered species and the wider evolutionary history of the flowering plants as revealed by cladistic methods.
 

Contenido

From Ray to Darwin
7
Other types of distribution
41
Correlated variation
48
PostDarwinian ideas about evolution
80
Modern views on the basis of variation
88
Modern techniques used in studying genetic variation
103
Use of DNA in studies of variation
111
Phenotypic plasticity
120
Microevolution in arable areas
250
Concluding remarks
257
Gradual speciation and hybridisation
270
Abrupt speciation
309
The species concept
361
some general considerations
367
confronting the extinction of species
399
The role of protected areas in countering the threat
423

Infraspecific variation and the ecotype concept
167
Recent advances in genecology
208
Lotus
229
Reciprocal transplant experiments
237
Coselection in swards
244
Manipulating and creating populations of endangered
428
Glossary
434
Index
499
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