Wastewater Organisms contains 210 high-quality full-color micrographs to help you identify organisms found in sewage and sludge. These photos provide the maximum level of detail and will help you better understand the form and dimension of the organisms. Subjects depicted in the micrographs include bacteria, eggs, amoeba, parasitic protozoa, tardigrada (water bears), rotifers, ciliates, parasitic helminths, pollen grain, free-living nematodes, algae, flagellates, and more. There is a chapter on enumeration which provides literature and techniques for fixing and staining, techniques often required for identification to the species level. The book also contains a valuable glossary and index to make the book even easier to use. Wastewater Organisms is an indispensable reference for wastewater managers and supervisors, wastewater operators, environmental consultants, practicing engineers, regulatory agency personnel at all levels of government, and libraries.
ocean depths, salt lakes, soda lakes, and estuarine muds, among other environments. Life at the Limits considers how organisms survive major stresses, and what extreme organisms can tell us about the origin of life and the possibilities of extraterrestrial life. David Wharton is a Senior Lecturer in Zoology at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. He has focused his research on the survival abilities of nematodes, resulting in the publication of over 75 research papers and one book, The Functional Biology of Nematodes (Croom Helm, 1986). His contribution to research was recognized by the award of the degree Doctor of Science by the University of Bristol in 1997. Recently, Wharton has become interested in the popularization of science through his involvement in the establishment of a Postgraduate Diploma in Natural History, Filmmaking and Communication, a collaboration between the University of Otago and Natural History New Zealand, a producer of natural history films based in Dunedin.
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There is the Richard Lewontin nonbiologists know, the author of acerbic, thoughtful, witty, unhesitatingly leftist books such as Not in Our Genes and the essays from The New York Review of Books collected in It Ain't Necessarily So. This is the other Lewontin, the hardcore scientist, one of the most insightful evolutionary biologists going.
The Triple Helix is a manifesto for the life sciences: "The time has come when further progress in our understanding of nature requires that we reconsider the relationship between the outside and the inside, between organism and environment." Lewontin is not arguing for what he calls "obscurationist holism," but for a more complex interaction between gene, organism, and environment, in which they construct each other:
.... It is the biology, indeed the genes, of an organism that determines its effective environment, by establishing the way in which external physical signals become incorporated into its reactions.... Whatever the autonomous processes of the outer world may be, they cannot be perceived by the organism. Its life is determined by the shadows on the wall, passed through a transforming medium of its own creation.
Lewontin argues for a life science that faces up to reality, that tackles the problems of studying subtle processes in complex systems where three-dimensional shape is crucial. The journal Nature "cannot recommend [the book] too highly for the many commentators and headline writers who think that DNA is the blueprint for the organism"--or for their readers. --Mary Ellen Curtin
Book Description
One of our most brilliant evolutionary biologists, Richard Lewontin has also been a leading critic of those--scientists and non-scientists alike--who would misuse the science to which he has contributed so much. In The Triple Helix, Lewontin the scientist and Lewontin the critic come together to provide a concise, accessible account of what his work has taught him about biology and about its relevance to human affairs. In the process, he exposes some of the common and troubling misconceptions that misdirect and stall our understanding of biology and evolution.
The central message of this book is that we will never fully understand living things if we continue to think of genes, organisms, and environments as separate entities, each with its distinct role to play in the history and operation of organic processes. Here Lewontin shows that an organism is a unique consequence of both genes and environment, of both internal and external features. Rejecting the notion that genes determine the organism, which then adapts to the environment, he explains that organisms, influenced in their development by their circumstances, in turn create, modify, and choose the environment in which they live.
The Triple Helix is vintage Lewontin: brilliant, eloquent, passionate, and deeply critical. But it is neither a manifesto for a radical new methodology nor a brief for a new theory. It is instead a primer on the complexity of biological processes, a reminder to all of us that living things are never as simple as they may seem.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting book: OTHER things than DNA structure our lives.......2003-06-13
This an interesting book by an author who, pretty much, stopped writing when he completed his message.
His main message is that DNA is not the be-all and end-all when it comes to the structure of life. Other important factors are the conditions within the organism's cell (including what chemicals are present, and how the DNA folds), what the organism's environment is, and how the organism changes that environment.
Lewontin worries that because scientists can now easily analyze and manipulate genetic structure, scientists will overemphasize research on the DNA structure itself, leaving other important and significant biology unstudied.
The author also points out that while dramatic mutations are chosen to study mutations, many mutations aren't so dramatic, and that some of the "dramatic mutations" are in fact the combination of several lesser mutations.
The writing is unnecessarily complex in places, including one passage where the author claims "Causal claims are usually ceteris paribus, but in biology all other things are almost never equal." How many readers recognize the Latin phrase "ceteris paribus" ? The author also buys into the duality so common in discourse: _either_ DNA is the only important thing, _or_ DNA is a minor side-issue. What happened to the middle road?
Excellent non technical overview.......2002-05-11
Ok, so my review will be short. I believe this book is excelent since it accomplish to set clear why genetic determinism is wrong. Genes do not act by their own, they do so inside a cell which (at least in multicelular organisms) is just one more in millions (being that a prudent estimate to a small organism) whith whom it comunicates. Now, this is just part of the story, you still have to consider this organism lives in a specific habitat in which it develops (crucial step) and in which it feeds, moves (if it can), etc. So utimately genes are a full orchestra directed by surroundings.
I highly recomend this book to anyone interested in Molecular Biology, Genetics or Developmental Biology, it is basic but esential.
A triple knot for 'popular genetics'.......2001-07-16
Like everything else in life why should the reading of the Human Genome remain free discussion and debate on its merits and its false promises? THE TRIPLE HELIX like another recent book in the same vein - THE CENTURY OF THE GENE, - take it as their duty to throw cold water on all the happy gene talk in recent popular science books.
The Human Genome Project is not the primary target for criticism here; what Mr Lewontin objects to is the simplified approach of popular biology that insists on treating genes, organisms, and environments as distinctly seperate. Instead "taken together, the relations of genes, organisms, and environment are reciprocal relations in which all three elements are both cause and effects. Genes and environment are both causes of organisms, which are, in turn, causes of environments, so that genes become causes of environments as mediated by the organism." Quite plainly he says that organisms alter, modify, or in some cases create, their environments. Therefore in the great either/or debate on nature versus nurture, Mr Lewontin would argue it's neither/nor.
Taking neither side of the debate may lead one to believe that Mr Lewontin is then a supporter of a new theory, or an advocate of a new approach to determining biological truths. Not so. "It is not new principles that we need but a willingness to accept the consequences of the fact that biological systems occupy a different region of the space of physical relations than do simpler physico-chemical systems...that is, organisms are internally heterogeneous open systems."
General readers can manage the book because Mr Lewontin writes well, and in being critical, he takes time to explain his views. He's a leftist so he hits out at the usual targets, but he's also an independent thinker so sacred subjects of the left such as conservationism and protecting the environment also get a bit of stick. He believes that environments exist only with reference to the animals and plants that inhabit them, and furthermore, an environment can not be held in an unchanging state.
I enjoy reading some of the popular biology books that Mr Lewontin criticizes and his views on some of my pet subjects made me sit up. You need thick skin when reading Mr Lewontin but there are few better to learn from.
Why the genome project may disappoint.......2001-01-28
This little book contains three lectures given by Lewontin at the Lezioni Italiani in Milan a few years ago. It is technical and aimed at an educated readership. Since there is not enough space here to discuss the entire book, I will concentrate on a brief discussion of the first, "Gene and Organism."
In this lecture Professor Lewontin outlines the role that genes, environment and chance ("random noise") play in the development of an organism. As he phrases it on page 20: "the organism is not specified by its genes, but is a unique outcome of an ontogenetic process that is contingent on the sequence of environments in which it occurs." This means that you could take the same genetic code and have it unfurl in Hyde Park and get an organism different from one you would get having it unfurl on, say, the Boston commons. Lewontin shows how cuttings from the same plant cultured at different altitudes developed differentially, and in a manner that could not be predicted. The reason they could not be predicted is that there is a significant amount of random variation ("developmental noise") that occurs as the plant grows. Lewontin gives the further example of a multiplying bacterium on page 37. The bacterium divides in 63 minutes. In another 63 minutes the daughter cells should divide again, giving four bacteria, but actually there is some random variation in how long it takes them to divide, so that one daughter divides in say 55 minutes, the other in an hour and five minutes. And this continues so that the bacteria culture does not increase in pulses, but continuously in random increments. This difference in timing in multi-cellar organisms may result in morphological differences since a catalytic enzyme may arrive too late to, say, grow a side bristle on a fruit fly (an example that Lewontin gives). Lewontin applies this understanding to the development of our brains on page 38. First there are random connections set. "Those connections that are reinforced from external inputs during neural development are stabilized, while the others decay and disappear." This process, Lewontin advises us, can lead to differences in cognitive function that are neither strictly genetic nor strictly environmental. They are influenced by random (unpredictable) factors.
This understanding is the reason that Lewontin is less than thrilled with the Human Genome Project. He believes, as he makes clear in another book, It Ain't Necessary So: The Dream of the Human Genome and Other Illusions (2000), that we will be disappointed by what can be accomplished simply from sequencing the genetic code, his point being that even though we know the code, the environmental and random factors cannot be known in any precise or predictive sense. It is true that the genome for a chimp will always code for a chimp and never for a rabbit, but whether that chimp is good at math or has unusually aggressive tendencies is something we cannot know from an understanding of the genetic code alone. Chance and environmental factors in development can result in a passive chimp even though its parents are aggressive.
Applying this idea to evolution in general, we can see that individual variation is not strictly a result of environmental differences but also of chance differences. Consequently, what we are is not shaped strictly by adaptive pressure (natural selection) but is to some extent the result of purely random processes. At one time in my life I studied chance and random events, and one of the most important things I learned is that the term "random" is not clearly defined, except in the sense that something that is random is unpredictable, which is a "you can't prove a negative" sort of definition. I also learned that there is considerable doubt as to whether a truly randomizing device actually exists. All real world devices, such as roulette wheels and computer random number algorithms can be shown to have some tiny bias, or to break down at the extremes. (Don't trust the random number generator on your computer when you are generating a very large number of trials: it will begin to repeat, and your Monte Carlo simulation will be flawed.) So what Lewontin calls "random events" are actually events that we simply do not know enough about to describe accurately. It may be that with greater ability we will eventually be able to describe or control these events. However, it may also be that at some level such events are the direct result of the probabilistic nature of a quantum event, and therefore in principle unpredictable. I suspect that Lewontin believes something like this.
In the second lecture Lewontin makes the point that to a significant degree organisms create their environment, and it is wrong to think of a place (such as the surface of the moon) without organisms as an environment. His dictum is "...[T]here are no environments without organisms" (p. 67). In the third lecture Lewontin discusses some of the problems associated with genetic causation and its analysis. There is a fourth chapter in which Lewontin attempts to provide some direction for future studies in biology.
I did not understand his assertion on page 81 that "Only a quasi-religious commitment to the belief that everything in the world has a purpose would lead us to provide a functional explanation for fingerprint ridges or eyebrows or the patches of hair on men's chests." The hair, I imagine is the result of sexual selection, but surely the fingerprint ridges allow us a better grip, and our eyebrows shade the sunlight as well as providing some small cushioning for our eye sockets.
Highly recommended.......2001-01-08
This little book is a nearly perfect antidote to books like Matt Ridley's Genome which tend to overstate the importance of decoding the human genome. In this wide-ranging discussion, Lewontin argues, among other things, that genes do not 'compute' organisms, and that organisms actively 'construct' their own environments. Lewontin's writing is elegant and concise. He succeeds in communicating (sometimes difficult) concepts in ways that a layman can understand.
P.S. The book information given above, as to page count, is inaccurate: I count 136 pages, not 192. Indeed, my only minor complaint is that the book is rather expensive, considering its length.
Book Description
In Alien Species and Evolution, biologist George W. Cox reviews and synthesizes emerging information on the evolutionary changes that occur in plants, animals, and microbial organisms when they colonize new geographical areas, and on the evolutionary responses of the native species with which alien species interact.
The book is broad in scope, exploring information across a wide variety of taxonomic groups, trophic levels, and geographic areas. It examines theoretical topics related to rapid evolutionary change and supports the emerging concept that species introduced to new physical and biotic environments are particularly prone to rapid evolution. The author draws on examples from all parts of the world and all major ecosystem types, and the variety of examples used gives considerable insight into the patterns of evolution that are likely to result from the massive introduction of species to new geographic regions that is currently occurring around the globe.
Alien Species and Evolution is the only state-of-the-art review and synthesis available of this critically important topic, and is an essential work for anyone concerned with the new science of invasion biology or the threats posed by invasive species.
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- A wonderfully comprehensive overview of an amazing group
- Pianka and Vitt's "Lizards" a remarkable contribution
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Lizards: Windows to the Evolution of Diversity (Organisms and Environments, 5)
Eric R. Pianka , and
Laurie J. Vitt
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ASIN: 0520234014 |
Book Description
From tiny to gigantic, from drab to remarkably beautiful, from harmless to venomous, lizards are spectacular products of natural selection. This book, lavishly illustrated with color photographs, is the first comprehensive reference on lizards around the world. Accessible, scientifically up-to-date, and written with contagious enthusiasm for the subject, Lizards: Windows to the Evolution of Diversity covers species evolution, diversity, ecology, and biology. Eric R. Pianka and Laurie J. Vitt have studied and photographed members of almost all lizard families worldwide, and they bring to the book a deep knowledge based on extensive firsthand experience with the animals in their natural habitats.
Part One explores lizard lifestyles, answering such questions as why lizards are active when they are, why they behave as they do, how they avoid predators, why they eat what they eat, and how they reproduce and socialize. In Part Two the authors take us on a fascinating tour of the world's manifold lizard species, beginning with iguanians, an evolutionary group that includes some of the most bizarre lizards, the true chameleons of Africa and Madagascar. We also meet the glass lizard, able to break its tail into many highly motile pieces to distract a predator from its body; lizards that can run across water; and limbless lizards, such as snakes. Part Three gives an unprecedented global view of evolutionary trends that have shaped present-day lizard communities and considers the impact of humans on their future.
A definitive resource containing many entertaining anecdotes, this magnificent book opens a new window to the natural world and the evolution of life on earth.
Customer Reviews:
A wonderfully comprehensive overview of an amazing group.......2005-02-16
Without a doubt, this book is the most comprehensive overview of lizard evolution and ecology, available on the market today. Pianka & Vitt take readers on a tour through the many aspects of the lacertilian suborder. In the process, they show one how incredibly useful lizards have been for science.
The book is broken up into three sections. The first section gives an overview of lizards in general. It goes over the basic anatomy, and the distinct differences between the three main lizard groups (Iguania, Gekkota & Autarchoglossa). The second section goes more in depth about each major group. It gives a breakdown of all the major families, and even goes so far as to explain the different genera in each. The final section takes the reader through a brief history of the squamata. It explains their evolution throughout the Mesozoic, and ending with a chapter on relationship of lizards with people.
The appendix, at the end, gives a taxonomic summary of all the lizard genera known for each family; along with a total species count. While this is already a bit out of date (sad fate for all published material dealing with taxonomy), it is a nice addition.
The chapter on lizards and humans, has a nice section talking about lizards as pets. In the past, herpetologists have often frowned on the keeping of lizards as pets. Pianka & Vitt considered doing the same. Yet, as they mention: "We would be hypocrites if we did." They realize that most up and coming (and many professional) herpetologists/paleontologists, keep/kept lizards as pets. Herpetoculture is here to stay. As such, it makes more sense to learn the most one can about the animal they intend to keep. Reading words of acceptance from those in the field, is always an encouraging thing to see.
Of course, not everything about the book is perfect. I did have some minor gripes with it.
For starters, I took minor issue with the treatment of the three main lizard groups. In particular, the treatment of Iguanians compared to the scleroglossans. The scleroglossan lizards are often exalted above the iguanians, at the latter's expense. I can understand Pianka & Vitt's reasoning behind this. Scleroglossa make up the majority of living lacertilians, yet remain the least studied group of lizards out there. In that sense, I can't blame the authors for wanting to put more emphasis on this group. I just wish that it didn't appear to be at the expense of the iguanians. It's not done all that often, and it's never intentional, but every once in a while, a comment is made on the archaic nature of iguanians that tends to make them out as sounding inferior.
A neat thing about the second part of the book, is that Pianka & Vitt do explain the meaning behind many of the genus names. Unfortunately, they don't do it for all of them. This wouldn't be so troublesome if it didn't happen so randomly. For instance, in the beginning of the agamid descriptions, a definition for each genus name is given. Yet at, roughly, the last third of the section, the definitions just stop. It remains this way until well into Iguanidae (a quick blurb at Leiocephalinae) before disappearing again. Gekkotans get a brief, but acute, set of definitions (done as an example of how many are named after their toes), with some other definitions sprinkled in throughout the rest of the chapter. It continues like this throughout the rest of this section. As such, it leaves readers such as myself (who enjoy the meanings behind the names) left wanting more.
Finally, the last real gripe I have about the book is in respect to the trend, in recent years, to apply cladistic methods to classification. Throughout the book, mentions are made on the monophyly of one group vs. the paraphyly of another. That in itself, is not bad, but when it interferes with classification, it becomes an annoyance. One area in particular, is the way in which snakes are handled. The group, itself, is descended from a lizard ancestor. Yet, snakes are still classified as a separate collection of squamates; which is fine (the same happens with mammals and therapsids, among other examples). My problem with the book, is that the authors feel this need to mention how "snakes are lizards too." It's pounded into one's head at the beginning, and towards the end of the book. Yet, the snakes themselves, are hardly ever mentioned. There is no section of the various families of snakes out there. Nor any real mention of their various life histories. So, I'm left wondering: Why bother mentioning the "snakes are lizards too" bit? If one is going to insist of abiding by the cladistic paradigm in classification, then one should follow through with it.
With that said, please keep in mind that I do consider all of these to be minor gripes. The book is still a must read for anyone with more than just a passing interest in this amazing group of animals, and the author's chilling take on the status of our planet (last section of the final chapter) is another must read for any young biologist, preparing to enter the field.
Highly recommended.
Pianka and Vitt's "Lizards" a remarkable contribution.......2004-02-26
This book is truly amazing! As a scientist, I have read hundreds of works, but never have I encountered a better combination of scientific rigor coupled with what one might call, popular appeal. The authors have basically provided the contribution of record on lizard biology, while simulataneously producing one of the most interesting coffee table "thumb-throughs" that one could imagine. First the biological rigor. Pianka and Vitt break the book into three sections, very appropriately I believe, beginning with lizard behavior--evolution, life history, context. These seven chapters lead naturally to a second section, six chapters devoted to lizard diversity. Not anatomical or taxonomical hell at all, but brilliantly protrayed, ecologically situated depiction of form and function, from iguanas to dragons. The third section ties together the ethology, the diversity of genera, as a well articulated synthesis. In so doing in this concluding synthesis, the authors have managed to write a tutorial that is extremely valuable as a stand alone study plan for teaching evolution and biology to students of just about any level of sophistication. Yes, the book provides comprehensive documentation, references, and taxonomic details--it is a remarkable scientific work. But it is one that can't be put down--the authors even share their personal histories of interest, and they embed numberous "so what? boxes". I found the professional quality photo's to merit review themselves as a contribution to photography. In fact, after walking through the habitat-borne illustrations, I felt that I had spent an eye-opening day with these creatures. "Lizards: Windows to the Evolution of Diversity" is a must for biologists, and a gotta have for anyone interested in creatures. Harry Greene's foreward claim that the book is "a survey of unprecedented depth and breadth" is classic understatement.
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The Biology of Complex Organisms: Creation and Protection of Integrity
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ASIN: 3764369795 |
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Towards the end of the 20th century, biology seems to have replaced physics as the leading scientific discipline. At the beginning 21st century, the potential impact of biology on the fate of mankind has placed this discipline in the limelight of public interest as well. It is therefore important that biologists leave the ivory tower of their laboratories and explain to the public what they do, how they do it, and what they want to achieve. In the first part of this volume six leading biologists present their views on the principles nature uses to generate complex organisms such as man, and on strategies such complex organisms use to protect their integrity in a hostile environment. The scientific process is revealed as an intellectual endeavor aimed at goals that enrich our culture rather than threaten it. The chapters are lectures read at a symposium on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Max-Planck-Institute of Immunobiology (Freiburg, Germany). Aimed at a general audience without being trivial
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Evolutionary Ecology of Social and Sexual Systems: Crustaceans As Model Organisms
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0195179927 |
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Understanding of animal social and sexual evolution has seen a renaissance in recent years with discoveries of frequent infidelity in apparently monogamous species, the importance of sperm competition, active female mate choice, and eusocial behavior in animals outside the traditional social insect groups. Each of these findings has raised new questions, and suggested new answers, about the evolution of behavioral interactions among animals. This volume synthesizes recent research on the sexual and social biology of the Crustacea, one of the dominant invertebrate groups on earth. Its staggering diversity includes ecologically important inhabitants of nearly every environment from deep-sea trenches, through headwater streams, to desert soils. The wide range of crustacean phenotypes and environments is accompanied by a comparable diversity of behavioral and social systems, including the elaborate courtship and wildly exaggerated morphologies of fiddler crabs, the mysterious queuing behavior of migrating spiny lobsters, and even eusociality in coral-reef shrimps. This diversity makes crustaceans particularly valuable for exploring the comparative evolution of sexual and social systems. Despite exciting recent advances, however, general recognition of the value of Crustacea as models has lagged behind that of the better studied insects and vertebrates. This book synthesizes the state of the field in crustacean behavior and sociobiology and places it in a conceptually based, comparative framework that will be valuable to active researchers and students in animal behavior, ecology, and evolutionary biology. It brings together a group of internationally recognized and rising experts in fields related to crustacean behavioral ecology, ranging from physiology and functional morphology, through mating and social behavior, to ecology and phylogeny. Each chapter makes connections to other, non-crustacean taxa, and the volume closes with a summary section that synthesizes the contributions, discusses anthropogenic impacts, highlights unanswered questions, and provides a vision for profitable future research.
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Genetics and Evolution of Aquatic Organisms
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ASIN: 0412493705 |
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This volume brings together, for the first time, a wide range of up-to-the-minute and traditional techniques and approaches to the study of genetics of organisms living in freshwater or marine habitats. Carefully edited chapters are headed by broad review articles against which are set a number of more specific experience papers which demonstrate the breadth and range of approaches currently being undertaken.
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