Experimental Evolution. Concepts, Methods, and Applications of Selection Experiments. Theodore Garland Jr and Michael R. Rose, editors.

Abstract

I have been interested in experimental evolution for a long time. In July 1995, I organized a symposium for the meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution in Montreal, Quebec entitled “Rapid Evolutionary Change in Wild Populations” to which I invited six field biologists (Scott Carroll, Rosemary Grant, Judy Myers, Dolph Schluter, Carmen Parmesan, and Sara Via) and no laboratory scientists. Imagine my disappointment then, when this book arrived and there was only one short chapter on field experiments. In that chapter, Irschick and Reznick argue that unlike laboratory selection experiments, field experiments inform us about mechanisms of population establishment, the prevalence of rapid evolutionary change, and the role of natural and anthropogenic catastrophic events. This seemed relatively little—considering the difficulty in funding long-term field experiments—so I continued to read the remaining 730 pages. Much of this book is about laboratory selection on microorganisms, insects, and mice. What surprised me was my favorite chapters were not those that I would have predicted from their titles.