Review by Choice Review
A large and fairly detailed book to introduce undergraduates to evolutionary biology. Five sections, with three to five chapters in each, introduce the four main components Ridley considers to be eveolutionary theory: genetics, adaptation and selection, diversity (what one would term "systematics"), and macroevolution. Historical background and terminology are covered in the first section, the second surveys both population and molecular genetics, and the third combines aspects of organismal microevolution, evolutionary functional morphology, and adaptation. In Section 4, a broadly cladistic view prevails, but this reviewer questions the sequence of chapters: classification, species concepts, speciation, and phylogeny reconstruction. These topics are intertwined in a manner not well elaborated here, and one might move most of the classification material to the end, with the goal of understanding species and then lineages before naming segments thereof. The final section covers biogeography, rates, trends, and extinction--the usual macroevolutionary menu. Recommended. Advanced undergraduate. E. Delson; Herbert H. Lehman College, CUNY
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
