Synopses & Reviews
Review
“This is an insightful and original work, comprehensive and up to date, covers many interesting ideas, and is particularly good on inclusion of recent genetic information on the process of speciation in birds. It will be the best work available on its topic, the behavioral and genetic causes and consequences of speciation in birds.”
– Robert Payne, Curator of Birds and Professor of Zoology, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology
Review
“An insightful and thought-provoking treatise on speciation and its consequences in birds, the taxon that brought you the biological species concept and the doctrine of allopatric speciation. This book delivers a grand update that expands our understanding of the role of ecology and behavior.”
– Dolph Schluter, Professor and Canada Research Chair, University of British Columbia, and the author of The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation
Review
“As the literature in any field explodes there is simultaneously an increasing need for synthesis yet an increasing difficulty in achieving it. This is certainly true for the ever-popular subject of ornithology. Trevor Price takes up the challenge to explain how birds speciate, and succeeds magnificently. It is a comprehensive review of all the major ideas, beautifully illustrated with pictures of birds. More than 1300 works are cited, but more impressive is the range of subjects, from genetics to biogeography, from the reconstruction of phylogeny to ecology and the causes of reproductive isolation, all discussed with admirable clarity. If they were alive today Ernst Mayr would bestow patrician approval on this work of scholarship, and Theodosius Dobzhansky would applaud from the side-lines.”
– Peter R. Grant, Class of 1877 Professor of Zoology, Princeton University, and the author of Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches
Synopsis
Speciation in Birds is a tour de force on its topic?the origin of bird species. The book evaluates the roles of natural selection and sexual selection. It asks how speciation contributes to some of the great patterns in species diversity?such as the large number of species in the tropics, and the many endemic species on isolated islands. Throughout, the author emphasizes the integration of behavior, ecology, and genetics.
Synopsis
Asking how speciation contributes to some of the great patterns in species diversity, Speciation in Birds explores the roles of natural selection and sexual selection in the most authoritative and modern synthesis on the subject to date.
Synopsis
In Speciation in Birds, Trevor Price, a University of Chicago professor and leading expert in the field, has written the most authoritative and modern synthesis on the subject to date. In clear and engaging prose and through beautiful illustrations, Price shows us why the field is as exciting and vibrant as ever. He evaluates the roles of natural selection and sexual selection. He asks how speciation contributes to some of the great patterns in species diversity such as the large number of species in the tropics, and the many endemic species on isolated islands. Throughout the book, Price emphasizes the integration of behavior, ecology, and genetics.
About the Author
Trevor Price has spent his professional career studying speciation in birds, working for his doctoral thesis on the famous adaptive radiation of Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos Islands. For the past 20 years he has been studying speciation and adaptive radiation in the Himalayas. He is Professor of Biology at the University of Chicago.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Geography and Ecology
3. Geographical variation
4. Parapatric Speciation
5. Ecological speciation
6. Ecological controls and speciation on continents
7. Behavior and ecology
8. Geographical isolation and the causes of island endemism
9. Social Selection
10. Social selection and the evolution of song
11. Divergence in response to increased sexual selection
12. Social selection and ecology
13. Species recognition
14. Mate choice at the end of speciation
15. Hybrid zones
16. Genetic incompatibility
17. Conclusions