Genetics in the Wild

by AVISE, JOHN C.

• ISBN13: 9781588342935
• ISBN10: 158834293X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-07-06
• 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.

Author Biography

John C. Avise is distinguished research professor of genetics at the University of Georgia and was elected to the membership of both the National Academy of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of many books, including Captivating Life: A Naturalist in the Age of Genetics.

Trudy Nicholson has illustrated many books, including Evolutionary Wars: The Battle of Species on Land, at Sea, and in the Air.

Table of Contents

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