Genetics in the Wild

by Avise, John C.; Nicholson, Trudy

• ISBN13: 9781588340696
• ISBN10: 1588340694
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-08-17
• Publisher: Smithsonian Books

Summary

Award-winning geneticist John C. Avise guides this delightful voyage around the planet in search of answers to nature's mysteries. He demonstrates how scientists directly examine DNA to address long-standing questions about wild animals, plants, and microbes. Through dozens of stories that span the world, nature emerges as a realm where truth can be far stranger than fiction. From a 100-ton mushroom to egg-swapping birds, extinct ground sloths to microbes inside our bodies, Avise examines a cornucopia of natural-history topics and explains how today's modern genetic techniques offer novel insights. Do armadillo litters really contain clones? When is a fig tree not just a single tree? Where have migratory whales traveled? Who are the mothers of the embryos carried by pregnant male seahorses? What insect was the world's earliest farmer? How closely related are Neanderthals to modern humans? Answers to these and many more questions are presented here in a straightforwad manner that reveals Avise's enthusiasm for uncovering nature's hidden ways. Each entry is accompanied by a beautiful illustration from Trudy Nicholson, widely recognized as one of today's leading nature artists.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction	xvii
Some Evolutionary Oddities	1	(18)
The Panda's Pedigree	2	(1)
Meat-Eating Plants	3	(2)
Venomous Vipers and Their Toxins	5	(2)
Giant Tubeworms	7	(2)
Horseshoe Crabs	9	(2)
A Tale of the King and the Hermit	11	(2)
Plantlike Animals Full of Algae	13	(1)
The Bacterial Bounty Within	14	(2)
Jumping Genes: Nature's Real Movers and Shakers	16	(3)
Clones and Chimeras	19	(14)
Nature's Clone-Making Mammal	20	(3)
The Lizard That Dispensed with Sex	23	(1)
Amazon Sexual Parasites	24	(2)
The 100,000-Year-Old Clone	26	(2)
When Is an Individual Not an Individual?	28	(2)
Chimeric Sea Squirts	30	(1)
The Strangler Fig Gang	31	(2)
Hermaphroditism	33	(12)
The Fish That Mates with Itself	34	(2)
How Snails Sow Their Oats	36	(3)
Barriers to Self-Pollination	39	(2)
More Sexual Confusion	41	(1)
The Fish That Changes Its Sex	42	(3)
Sex, Pregnancy, and Making Babies	45	(18)
The Onus of Pregnancy	47	(1)
Pseudo-Nuptial Flights in Pseudoscorpions	48	(3)
Male Pregnancy	51	(2)
A Bird That Chooses the Sex of Its Children	53	(2)
Roly-Poly Sex Ratios	55	(2)
The Social Equality of Gulls	57	(2)
Extreme Social Behavior and Gender Control	59	(2)
Reptiles Whose Sex Is Temperature Dependent	61	(2)
Unusual Mating Practices	63	(18)
Fatherly Devotion and Female Impersonators	64	(3)
Female Accomplices of Male Cuckoldry	67	(2)
Lizards That Play Rock-Paper-Scissors	69	(1)
Birds with Roving Eyes and Cheating Hearts	70	(2)
Treefrog Mating Ceremonies	72	(2)
Swordtails' Tales	74	(2)
Why Some Species Like Leks	76	(2)
The Naked Mole Rat	78	(3)
Novel Ways of Handling Eggs and Sperm	81	(18)
Egg-Dumping and Wily Cuckoos	82	(3)
The Nest Architecture of Swallows	85	(1)
Egg Thievery and Nest Piracy	86	(3)
Males Whose Body Parts Mimic Eggs	89	(2)
The Storage of Sperm by Females	91	(2)
Damsels and Dragons	93	(2)
Beautiful Iris	95	(1)
Eating One's Own Kids	96	(3)
Dispersal and Migration	99	(20)
The Tale of Mother Goose	100	(2)
The Fish That Braves the Bermuda Triangle	102	(3)
The Migratory Circuit of a Whale	105	(2)
A Salute to Salmon	107	(2)
The King of Migration	109	(2)
Green Turtle Odysseys	111	(3)
Sweet Bees with a Nasty Disposition	114	(2)
The Ballast Travelers	116	(3)
Island Life	119	(18)
Darwin's Galapagos Finches	120	(3)
Beautiful Flies	123	(2)
More Exotic Beauties of Tropical Isles	125	(2)
Radiant Plants of the Hawaiian Islands	127	(2)
The Clinging Goby Fish	129	(2)
Fabulous, Fabled Frogs	131	(3)
Caribbean Cruises	134	(3)
Species Proliferations	137	(18)
Warbler Wardrobes	138	(2)
Unity and Diversity in the Winged Aussies	140	(2)
Evolutionary Trees and Elephants' Trunks	142	(2)
Brilliant Butterflies	144	(2)
Flocks of African Fishes	146	(3)
Microbats and Megabats	149	(2)
Anomalies and Paradoxes in Sunflowers	151	(1)
Snapping Shrimps	152	(3)
Wildlife Forensics and Conservation	155	(18)
The Plight of the Whales	156	(2)
Pinniped Penises	158	(2)
A Tasty Turtle	160	(2)
``Caviar Emptor''	162	(2)
An Endangered Bird in the Belly of a Snake	164	(2)
The Ridley Riddles	166	(3)
Lakes, Swamps, and Gene Pools	169	(2)
The Fish Whose Babies Get All Mixed Up	171	(2)
Some Genetic World Records	173	(16)
The 100-Ton Mushroom	174	(1)
Copepods: Nature's Most Abundant Animal?	175	(2)
Mating Champions of the Insect World	177	(1)
Lonesome George: The World's Loneliest Beast?	178	(2)
Life's Earliest Farmers	180	(2)
How Low Do Root Tips Go?	182	(2)
A Fish Returned from the Dead	184	(1)
The World's Most Shocking Marriage?	185	(2)
The Planet's Most Common Vertebrate?	187	(2)
Fossil DNA	189	(14)
Ancient Asphalt Jungles	190	(2)
Genetic Visions of Mammoths	192	(2)
Facts on Bruin Evolution	194	(1)
The Diets of Sloths	195	(2)
The Demise of the Flightless Moa	197	(2)
The Quagga Quandary	199	(1)
Neanderthals and Us	200	(3)
Epilogue	203	(2)
Appendix: Molecular Genetic Techniques	205	(6)
Glossary	211	(10)
References and Further Reading	221	(20)
Index	241