Pillars of Evolution

Douglas Morris is Professor and Lakehead University Research Chair in Northern Studies at Lakehead University, Canada. He obtained his BSc. and MSc. in Biology from the University of Windsor 1974/1976, then a PhD in Biology from the University of Calgary in 1980. He went to on be a NSERC Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Western Ontario, before being appointed as Associate Professor of Biology at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where he stayed from 1982-1990. As well as his current position at Lakehead University, he is Adjunct Professor of Biology at Laval University. Douglas is former President of the Canadian Society of Zoologists and the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution. He has served on the Editorial Boards for several journals, including Ecology, Ecological Monographs, and Ecoscience.Per Lundberg is Professor of Theoretical Ecology at Lund University, Sweden. He received his BSc./Msc. in Biology from Umeå University, Sweden in 1980, and then a PhD in Ecological Zoology . He went on to take up a position as Assistant Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Animal Ecology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences where he worked from 1986 - 1994. He has also held positions as Visiting scientist, Department of Zoology, University of Guelph, Canada (1991), Associate Professor of Theoretical Ecology, Lund University, Sweden, and Center Fellow, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), Santa Barbara, USA (2002-2003). Per has served on the Editorial boards of Oikos, Evolutionary Ecology, American Naturalist, and Proceedings of the Royal Society B, and was Editor-in-Chief for Oikos from 2004-2009.

The strength of this book lies in its simple structure. The pillars of evolutionary knowledge are set out as six principles: mechanics, function, structure, scale, dynamics and adaptation. Familiar enough, yet potentially game changing if the pillars are constructed into a new synthesis that cuts across disciplinary boundaries.

• Preface ; 1. Introduction ; 2. Mechanics ; 3. Function ; 4. Structure ; 5. Scale ; 6. Dynamics ; 7. Adaptation ; References ; Index