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Information about Evolutionary Biologist

Part of the Biology series on
Evolution
Mechanisms and processes
Adaptation
Genetic drift
Gene flow
Mutation
Natural selection
Speciation
Research and history
Evidence
History
Modern synthesis
Social effect / Objections
Evolutionary biology fields
Ecological genetics
Evolutionary development
Human evolution
Molecular evolution
Evolutionary history of life
Phylogenetics
Population genetics
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 Evolutionary biology is a sub-field of biology concerned with the origin and descent of species, as well as their change, multiplication, and diversity over time. One who studies evolutionary biology is known as an evolutionary biologist.

Evolutionary biology is an interdisciplinary field because it includes scientists from a wide range of both field and lab oriented disciplines. For example, it generally includes scientists who may have a specialist training in particular organisms such as mammalogy, ornithology, or herpetology, but use those organisms as case studies to answer general questions in evolution. It also generally includes paleontologists and geologists who use fossils to answer questions about the tempo and mode of evolution, as well as theoreticians in areas such as population genetics and evolutionary psychology. In the 1990s developmental biology made a re-entry into evolutionary biology from its initial exclusion from the modern synthesis through the study of evolutionary developmental biology.

Its findings feed strongly into new disciplines that study mankind's sociocultural evolution and evolutionary behavior. Evolutionary biology's frameworks of ideas and conceptual tools are now finding application in the study of a range of subjects from computing to nanotechnology.

Artificial life is a sub-field of bioinformatics that attempts to model, or even recreate, the evolution of organisms as described by evolutionary biology. Usually this is done through mathematics and computer models.

History

Main article: History of evolutionary thought


Evolutionary biology as an academic discipline in its own right emerged as a result of the modern evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s. It was not until the 1970s and 1980s, however, that a significant number of universities had departments that specifically included the term evolutionary biology in their titles. In the United States, as a result of the rapid growth of molecular and cell biology, many universities have split (or aggregated) their biology departments into molecular and cell biology-style departments and ecology and evolutionary biology-style departments (which often have subsumed older departments in paleontology, zoology and the like).

Microbiology has recently developed into an evolutionary discipline. It was originally ignored due to the paucity of morphological traits and the lack of a species concept in microbiology. Now, evolutionary researchers are taking advantage of our extensive understanding of microbial physiology, the ease of microbial genomics, and the quick generation time of some microbes to answer evolutionary questions. Similar features have led to progress in viral evolution, particularly for bacteriophage.

Notable evolutionary biologists

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Notable contributors to evolutionary biology include: Evolutionary biologists known primarily for their science popularization: Notable popularizers of evolution whose research isn't primarily concerned with evolutionary biology include:

Bibliography

Textbooks

  • Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition), Sinauer Associates (1998) ISBN 0-87893-189-9
  • Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolution, Sinauer Associates (2005) ISBN 0-87893-187-2
  • Mark Ridley, Evolution (3rd edition), Blackwell (2003) ISBN 1-4051-0345-0
  • Scott R. Freeman and Jon C. Herron, Evolutionary Analysis, Prentice Hall (2003) ISBN 0-13-101859-0
  • Michael R. Rose and Laurence D. Mueller, Evolution and Ecology of the Organism, Prentice Hall (2005) ISBN 0-13-010404-3
  • Monroe W. Strickberger, Evolution (3rd Edition), Jones & Bartlett Publishers (2000) ISBN 0-7637-1066-0

Notable monographs and other works

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Topics in evolutionary biology

External links

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General subfields within biology
Anatomy - Astrobiology - Biochemistry - Bioinformatics - Botany - Cell biology - Ecology - Developmental biology - Evolutionary biology - Genetics - Genomics - Marine biology - Human biology - Microbiology - Molecular biology - Origin of life - Paleontology - Parasitology - Pathology - Physiology - Taxonomy - Zoology


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Basic topics in
Biology (from Greek: βίος, bio, "life"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge"), also referred to as the biological sciences, is the scientific study of life.
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An adaptation is a positive characteristic of an organism that has been favored by natural selection.[1] The concept is central to biology, particularly in evolutionary biology.
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In population genetics, genetic drift (or more precisely allelic drift) is the statistical effect that results from the influence that chance has on the survival of alleles (variants of a gene).
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In population genetics, gene flow (also known as gene migration) is the transfer of alleles of genes from one population to another.
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mutations are changes to the base pair sequence of the genetic material of an organism. Mutations can be caused by copying errors in the genetic material during cell division, by exposure to ultraviolet or ionizing radiation, chemical mutagens, or viruses, or can occur deliberately
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Natural selection is the process by which favorable traits that are heritable become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable traits that are heritable become less
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Speciation is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise. There are four modes of natural speciation, based on the extent to which speciating populations are geographically isolated from one another:
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evidence of the theory of evolution provides a wealth of information on the natural processes by which the variety of life on Earth developed.

Fossils are important for estimating when various lineages developed.
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Evolutionary thought has roots in antiquity as philosophical ideas known to the Greeks, Romans, Indians, Chinese and Muslims. Until the 18th century, however, Western biological thought was dominated by essentialism, the idea that living forms are static and unchanging in time.
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The modern evolutionary synthesis refers to a set of ideas from several biological specialities that were brought together to form a unified theory of evolution accepted by the great majority of working biologists.
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The social effects of evolutionary thought have been considerable. As the scientific explanation of life's diversity has developed, it has often displaced alternative, sometimes very widely held, explanations.
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There have been numerous objections to evolution since alternative evolutionary ideas came to be hotly debated around the start of the nineteenth century.
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For the book see Ecological Genetics (book)
Ecological genetics is the study of genetics in the context of the interactions among organisms and between the organisms and their environment.
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Evolutionary developmental biology (evolution of development or informally, evo-devo) is a field of biology that compares the developmental processes of different animals and plants in an attempt to determine the ancestral relationship between organisms and how
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Human evolution is the part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of humans as a distinct species from other apes. It is the subject of a broad scientific inquiry that seeks to understand and describe how this change and development occurred.
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Molecular evolution is the process of evolution at the scale of DNA, RNA, and proteins. Molecular evolution emerged as a scientific field in the 1960s as researchers from molecular biology, evolutionary biology and population genetics sought to understand recent discoveries on the
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The evolutionary history of life and the origin of life are fields of ongoing geological and biological research. Although it is not necessary to understand the origin of life on earth to accept evolution by natural
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phylogenetics (Greek: phyle = tribe, race and genetikos = relative to birth, from genesis = birth) is the study of evolutionary relatedness among various groups of organisms (e.g., species, populations).
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Population genetics is the study of the allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four evolutionary forces: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene flow. It also takes account of population subdivision and population structure in space.
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Biology (from Greek: βίος, bio, "life"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge"), also referred to as the biological sciences, is the scientific study of life.
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species is one of the basic units of biological classification. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.
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Interdisciplinarity is the act of drawing from and integrating two or more academic disciplines, professions, technologies, departments, their methods and insights, in the pursuit of a common goal.
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laboratory (informally, lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory
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Plantae
  • Chromalveolata
  • Heterokontophyta
  • Haptophyta
  • Cryptophyta
  • Alveolata

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    • In zoology, mammalogy is the study of mammals – a class of vertebrates with characteristics such as homeothermic metabolism, fur, four-chambered hearts, and complex nervous systems.
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    Ornithology (from Greek: ορνισ, ornis, "bird"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of birds.
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    Herpetology (from greek: 'ερπετόν, "creeping animal" and λόγος, logos, "knowledge") is the branch of zoology concerned with the study of reptiles and amphibians.
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    The case study is one of several ways of doing social science research. Other ways include experiments, surveys, multiple histories, and analysis of archival information (Yin 2003).
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