Five Kingdoms, 3rd Edition: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life On Earth - Softcover

Margulis, Lynn; Schwartz, Karlene V.

4.24

71 ratings by Goodreads

9780805072525: Five Kingdoms, 3rd Edition: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life On Earth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805072527 ISBN 13: 9780805072525

Publisher: Holt Paperbacks, 1997

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An all-inclusive catalogue of the world's living diversity, Five Kingdoms defines and describes the major divisions of nature's five great kingdoms—bacteria, protoctists, animals, fungi, and plants—using a modern classification scheme that is consistent with both the fossil record and molecular data.

Generously illustrated and easy to follow, it not only allows students to sample the full range of life forms inhabiting our planet but to familiarize themselves with the taxonomic theories by which all organisms' origins and distinctive characteristics are traced and classified.

This completely revised and updated third edition includes an introduction by Stephen Jay Gould.

* New ideas on molecular systematics, symbiogenisis, and the place of microbes in the evolution of life

* Newly expanded chapter openings that define each kingdom and place its members in context in time and space

* Definitions of terms in the glossary and, now, also appropriately placed throughout the book

* A new table comparing the main features of each kingdom, showing the logic of the overall classification scheme

* A list of prehistoric dioramas in science museums and in U.S. national parks and monuments guiding readers to trips to the past

* A list of websites directing students to additional information

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Review:

This is the most complete and original biological field guide in history. Lynn Margulis, one of the most brilliant biologists of the 20th century, and her colleague Karlene Schwartz provide a roller-skate tour of the whole world of living things, from the smallest bacteria in the hot springs of Yellowstone to the mightiest oak (humans too, but we are set firmly in our place). In his Foreword, Stephen Jay Gould says "If the originality comes before us partly as a 'picture book,' it should not be downgraded for that reason--for primates are visual animals, and the surest instruction in a myriad of unknown creatures must be a set of figures with concise instruction about their meaning--all done so admirably in this volume." --Mary Ellen Curtin

About the Author:

Lynn Margulis is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and is the author of Symbiosis in Cell Evolution and, with Dorion Sagan, co-author of Origins of Sex, What Is Life?, and What Is Sex?

Karlene V. Schwartz teaches in the biology department at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and is a professional photographer of natural history.

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