Book reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Behavioural Ecology: An Evolutionary Approach, 3rd edn Edited by J. R. Krebs and N. B. Davies Field Guide to Victoria's Native Grasslands: Native Plants of Victorian Lowland Plains N. H. Scarlett, S. J. Wallbrink and K. McDougall Dasycladales: An Illustrated Monograph of a Fascinating Algal Order S. Berger and M. J. Kaever     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Nature Reserves: island theory and conservation practice by Craig L. Shafer.
Guide to the Birds of Madagascar by Olivier Langrand.  

Shorter notices

Democratising Development: the role of voluntary organisations by J. Clark.
History of Life by R. Cowen.
Behavioural Ecology. An evolutionary approach ed. by J. R. Krebs & N. B. Davies.
Colyer's Variations and Diseases of the Teeth of Animals ed. by A. E. W. Miles & C. Grieson.     

Book Review

Book reviewed in this article:
An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology by J. R. Krebs & N. B. Davies. Blackwell
The Savannas. Biogeography and Geobotany by Monica M. Cole.
Building Models for Conservation and Wildlife Management. By A. M. Starficld & A. L. Bleloch.     

“True clinical fictions”: Medical and literary narratives from the Civil War hospital

Where to find stories of the “real” Civil War? Since Walt Whitman, observers have suggested the place to look is the military hospital. This paper offers a comparative analysis of medical case histories and literary stories written by S. Weir Mitchell, head contract-surgeon at one of the largest Union army research hospitals. I illustrate that Mitchell's case histories and stories were at once complementary and antagonistic in their use of medical knowledge and narrative technique as a means of achieving truth-value.     

A century and a half of research on the evolution of insect flight

The gill and paranotal lobe theories of insect wing evolution were both proposed in the 1870s. For most of the 20th century, the paranotal lobe theory was more widely accepted, probably due to the fundamentally terrestrial tracheal respiratory system; in the 1970s, some researchers advocated for an elaborated gill (“pleural appendage”) theory. Lacking transition fossils, neither theory could be definitively rejected.Winged insects are abundant in the fossil record from the mid-Carboniferous, but insect fossils are vanishingly rare earlier, and all earlier fossils are from primitively wingless insects. The enigmatic, isolated mandibles of Rhyniognatha (early Devonian) hint that pterygotes may have been present much earlier, but the question remains open.In the late 20th century, researchers used models to study the interaction of body and protowing size on solar warming and gliding abilities, and stability and glide effectiveness of many tiny adjustable winglets versus a single, large pair of immobile winglets. Living stoneflies inspired the surface-skimming theory, which provides a mechanism to bridge between aquatic gills and flapping wings. The serendipitously discovered phenomenon of directed aerial descent suggests a likely route to the early origin of insect flight. It provides a biomechanically feasible sequence from guided falls to fully-powered flight.     

Inhibiting calpain,rescuing cells.

Drs. John Elce and Peter Davies, biochemists at Queen''s University, Kingston, Ont., are investigating the molecular structure of calpain, an enzyme that has been implicated in the cellular damage that occurs after such events as myocardial infarction and stroke. This damage is precipitated by an imbalance in the regulation of calpain that arises as an indirect result of ischemia. Elce and Davies hope that their research, which involves techniques such as recombinant DNA technology and x-ray crystallography, will lead to the development of a calpain inhibitor that will prevent such damage from occurring and enhance recovery.     

Setting and situation in migration from the Isle of Lewis*

This paper examines migration from the Isle of Lewis (Scotland). Mitchell's concepts of the social setting and the social situation of migration are employed: first, to demonstrate how the economic conditions of peripherality have created the factors, or social setting, promoting extensive out‐migration. Second, to demonstrate how the particular circumstances, or social situations, of individuals result in a wide range of types and patterns of migration. The historical development of the social setting and the effect of changes in it on migration are briefly examined. A number of career histories are used to illustrate the diversity of migrant responses to the setting. It is argued that this diversity is better understood if the concepts of type and pattern of migration are introduced into the analysis.     

Roman Jakobson and the Development of Russian Neurolinguistics

On May 21-23, 1963, the symposium "Disorders of Language" organized by the Ciba Foundation was held in England. It brought together many outstanding specialists from different parts of the world: "neurophysiologists, psychologists, phoneticians, linguists, a philosopher and an expert in information theory" (Disorders of Language, 1964, p. vii). That was the time of early flourishing of psycholinguistics: the first seminar in psycholinguistics, which lasted two months, was held ten years earlier in Bloomington, [Indiana], N. Chomsky's book Syntactic Structures was published in 1957, J. Miller's well-known article on checking the psychological reality of transformational grammar appeared in 1962. Much was expected of psycholinguistics and first and foremost because of the development of computers—the technical miracle of the twentieth century.     

Activity: Structure,Genesis, and Unit of Analysis

One of the most notable phenomena in Soviet psychology since the late '70s has been discussion of the relationship between communication and activity [8,13,18,19,21,23]. I consider the following formulation of the problem, given here in its most general form, the most constructive: communication and activity are indubitably interrelated, but communication (in contrast to perception, memory, etc.) cannot, in any constructive way, be regarded as a type of activity and analyzed within the framework of Leont 'ev's paradigm (activity—action—operation; motive—goal—condition). This formulation of the problem is useful primarily in terms of the further progress of the theory of activity: it quite incisively focuses on one essential point that has been inadequately dealt with in the theory of activity, namely, an analysis of the social means and mechanisms of human activity, both collective and individual.     

Darwin and sexual selection: One hundred years of misunderstanding

Darwin's book on the Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) is often viewed as the continuation of TheOrigin of Species published 12 years earlier (1859), both because of the implicit parallelism between natural selection and sexual selection, and because Darwin himself presents the book as developing a subject (man) which he intentionally omitted in the Origin. But the Descent can also be viewed as the continuation of his book on Variation published three years earlier (1868). Firstly because Darwin's hypothesis of pangenesis links the selection process to the origin of variation through use and disuse, an idea underlying his speculations on the origin of moral sense in humans. Second because like the action of the horticulturist on his domestic crops, sexual selection exerted by one sex on the other sex can develop fancy traits that are not easily accounted for by their utility to the selected organism itself, such as artistic taste, pride, courage, and the morphological differences between human populations. These traits are difficult to reconcile with pangenesis. They add up to other contradictions of the book possibly resulting from Darwin's erroneous inference about the mechanism of inheritance, like those on the determination of sex-ratio, or the confusion between individual adaptation and the advantage to the species. These inconsistencies inaugurate a weakening of the Darwinian message, which will last 50 years after his death. They contributed to the neglect of sexual selection for a century. Darwin however maintained a logical distinction between evolutionary mechanisms and hereditary mechanisms, and an epistemological distinction between evolutionary theory and Pangenesis hypothesis. In the modern context of Mendelian genetics, Darwin's sexual selection retrospectively appears as luminous an idea in its pure principle as natural selection, even though the mechanisms governing the evolution of sexual choice in animals remain largely unresolved.     

The significance of Aleš Hrdlička's “Neanderthal phase of man”: A historical and current assessment

Ale? Hrdli?ka's hypothesis on a Neandertal phase of human evolution is examined in light of current data and interpretations on Neandertals. Hrdli?ka's interpretations are related to his ideas regarding the peopling of the New World. A major early statement of Hrdli?ka's views on Neandertal was his Huxley Memorial Lecture of 1927. We assess this formulation and subsequent development of his hypothesis. Hrdli?ka's position is compared with the “presapiens” and “pre-neandertal” hypotheses on the basis of current theory and data.     

The Sex Chromosomes in Evolution and in Medicine

The recent emergence of human cytogenetics has a firm foundation in studies on other forms of life. Historical highlights are Mendel''s studies on the garden pea (published in 1865 but lost in an obscure journal until 1900); formulation of cytogenic postulates by Sutton and Boveri (1902-1903); Bridges'' discovery of chromosome abnormalities in Drosophila (1916), followed by numerous similar studies in plants; and demonstration of the chromosomal basis of the syndromes of Down, Klinefelter and Turner in man (1959).The sex chromosomes (XX and XY) evolved from a pair of undifferentiated autosomes of a premammalian ancestor, the X chromosome changing less than the Y as they evolved. Eleven numerical abnormalities of the sex chromosomes are known in man, and knowledge of their effects on development is accumulating. The abnormal complexes range in size from the XO error of Turner''s syndrome to the XXXXY error of a variant of Klinefelter''s syndrome.     

Why Canny's theory doesn't hold water

A critique of Martin Canny's theory of water transport supported by tissue pressure is given with reference to basic principles of cellular water relations and biomechanics. It is shown that the application of tissue pressure in Canny's theory is neither internally consistent nor compatible with basic biophysics. Canny's translation of tissue pressure into an altered steady-state pressure in the xylem conduits has no defensible mechanism, relying instead on untenable action-at-a-distance and poor definitions. Tissue pressure itself, as defined by Canny and illustrated by the example of a turgid leaf, may well exist. However, it cannot function in whole-plant processes as envisioned by Canny, nor can it exist in the magnitude his theory would require. Rigid outer tissue layers containing internal pressures of the magnitude postulated by Canny would require a tensile strength quite incompatible with the observed biological materials. A simple application of La Place's Law illustrates that this is an issue of scale and that the turgor generated by osmotic potentials must be balanced primarily at the cellular level, and not the tissue level.     

The Darwin of pangenesis

The Darwin of pangenesis is very much another Darwin. Pangenesis is Darwin's comprehensive theory of generation, his theory about all sexual and asexual modes of reproduction and growth. He never explicitly integrated pangenesis with his theory of natural selection. He first formulated pangenesis in the 1840s and integrated it with the physiology, including the cytology, of that era. It was, therefore, not consilient with the newer cytology of the 1860s when he published it in 1868. By reflecting on the role of pangenesis in Darwin's life and work, we can learn to take a wider view of his most general theorising about animal and plant life.     

The arts and human nature: evolutionary aesthetics and the evolutionary status of art behaviours

This essay reviews one of the most recent books in a trend of new publications proffering evolutionary theorising about aesthetics and the arts—themes within an increasing literature on aspects of human life and human nature in terms of evolutionary theory. Stephen Davies’ The Artful Species links some of our aesthetic sensibilities with our evolved human nature and critically surveys the interdisciplinary debate regarding the evolutionary status of the arts. Davies’ engaging and accessible writing succeeds in demonstrating the maturity and scope of the field and his critique is timely and unparalleled. A laudable effort, however it may have benefited from espousing a co-evolutionary model more explicitly. Moreover there may be reason to question the usefulness of the standard set of distinctions (‘adaptation’, ‘spandrel’, ‘technology’) that Davies appeals to.     

Components of the gaseous environment and their effects on plant growth and development in vitro

This article has first been published in: P. J. Lumsden, J. R. Nicholas and W. J. Davies (eds.), Physiology, Growth and Development of Plants in Culture, 165–190, 1994.     

Flea (Siphonaptera) species richness in the Great Basin Desert and island biogeography theory

Numbers of flea (Siphonaptera) species (flea species richness) on individual mammals should be higher on large mammals, mammals with dense populations, and mammals with large geographic ranges, if mammals are islands for fleas. I tested the first two predictions with regressions of H. J. Egoscue's trapping data on flea species richness collected from individual mammals against mammal size and population density from the literature. Mammal size and population density did not correlate with flea species richness. Mammal geographic range did, in earlier studies. The intermediate‐sized (31 g), moderately dense (0.004 individuals/m²) Peromyscus truei (Shufeldt) had the highest richness with eight flea species on one individual. Overall, island biogeography theory does not describe the distribution of flea species on mammals in the Great Basin Desert, based on H. J. Egoscue's collections. Alternatively, epidemiological or metapopulation theories may explain flea species richness.     

100 years of Haldane's rule

Haldane's rule is one of the ‘two rules of speciation’. It states that if one sex is ‘absent, rare or sterile’ in a hybrid population, then that sex will be heterogametic. Since Haldane first made this observation, 100 years have passed and still questions arise over how many independent examples exist and what the underlying causes of Haldane's rule are. This review aims to examine research that has occurred over the last century. It seeks to do so by discussing possible causes of Haldane's rule, as well as gaps in the research of these causes that could be readily addressed today. After 100 years of research, it can be concluded that Haldane's rule is a complicated one, and much current knowledge has been accrued by studying the model organisms of speciation. This has led to the primacy of dominance theory and faster-male theory as explanations for Haldane's rule. However, some of the most interesting findings of the 21st century with regard to Haldane's rule have involved investigating a wider range of taxa emphasizing the need to continue using comparative methods, including ever more taxa as new cases are discovered.     

Patrick Matthew's law of natural selection

Patrick Matthew is the little‐known first originator of macroevolution by natural selection. I review his ideas, and introduce some previously unnoticed writings (catalogued at a new website: http://smarturl.it/patrickmatthew ) that clarify how they differ from Darwin's and Wallace's. Matthew's formulation emphasized natural selection as an axiomatic ‘law’ rather than a ‘theory’, a distinction that could still be of use to us today. © 2015 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2015, ●● , ●●–●●.     

Phase response and entrainment: Model computations on their relation using Wever's oscillator model

Abstract

Enright's theory, which explains entrainment as periodically repeated phase response, is applied to Wever's self‐sustained oscillation model of are circadian rhythm and tested by computer simulation. Ranges of phase response and entrainment are compared and the oscillatory behaviour is shown in the phase diagram for the cases of phase response and entrainment. It is shown that Enright's theory is not valid for self‐sustained oscillations in general, but it need not necessarily fail in case of the biological circadian rhythm.