Plant Variation and Evolution

The long-awaited fourth edition of a classic text, now fully revised and updated for the molecular era.

David Briggs (Author), S. Max Walters (Author)

9781107602229, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 June 2016

600 pages, 108 b/w illus. 36 tables
24.6 x 18.9 x 2.7 cm, 1.25 kg

'This is a marvellously instructive book which provides a richness of examples on plant evolution and variation. Brought up to date and giving copious insights to the latest molecular biological and analytical techniques, this edition is par excellence the textbook in the field.' Des Thompson, Scottish Natural Heritage

We are in the midst of a biological revolution. Molecular tools are now providing new means of critically testing hypotheses and models of microevolution in populations of wild, cultivated, weedy and feral plants. They are also offering the opportunity for significant progress in the investigation of long-term evolution of flowering plants, as part of molecular phylogenetic studies of the Tree of Life. This long-awaited fourth edition, fully revised by David Briggs, reflects new insights provided by molecular investigations and advances in computer science. Briggs considers the implications of these for our understanding of the evolution of flowering plants, as well as the potential for future advances. Numerous new sections on important topics such as the evolutionary impact of human activities, taxonomic challenges, gene flow and distribution, hybridisation, speciation and extinction, conservation and the molecular genetic basis of breeding systems will ensure that this remains a classic text for both undergraduate and graduate students in the field.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Note on names of plants
List of abbreviations
1. Investigating plant variation and evolution
2. From Ray to Darwin
3. Early work on biometry
4. Early work on the basis of individual variation
5. Post-Darwinian ideas about evolution
6. DNA: towards an understanding of heredity and molecular evolution
7. Breeding systems
8. Infraspecific variation and the ecotype concept
9. Pattern and process in plant populations
10. Pattern and process: factors interacting with natural selection
11. Populations: origins and extinctions
12. Species and speciation: concepts and models
13. Allopatric speciation and hybridisation
14. Abrupt speciation by polyploidy
15. The species concept
16. Flowering plant evolution: advances, challenges and prospects
17. Historical biogeography
18. The evolutionary impact of human activities
19. The taxonomic challenge ahead
20. Conservation: from protection to restoration and beyond
Index.

Subject Areas: Palaeontology [RBX], Earth sciences [RB], Earth sciences, geography, environment, planning [R], Botany & plant sciences [PST], Life sciences: general issues [PSA], Biology, life sciences [PS], Mathematics & science [P]