About this Item
First separate edition, wrappers (original?). Near Fine. 'An early adopter of genetic techniques to study problems in systematics, biogeography, evolution and conservation, Woodruff collaborated with his colleague and close friend Stephen Jay Gould on a series of papers using genetic tools to study the evolution of the enormous variation of shell morphologies in Cerion, a group of Caribbean land snails. The study was tragically interrupted by Gould s death in 2002' ('In Memoriam: David S. Woodruff, Professor of Biology, Emeritus, UC San Diego, 1943-2015', University of California Academic Senate Web site). 'Variation in shell morphology among populations can be enormous, not only throughout the geographic range of Cerion, but even among neighboring populations separated by less than 100 meters. This lavish yet geographically circumscribed diversity has led to an extensive body of literature dealing with Cerionidae. Much of the early work was primarily descriptive, and focused on parsing the various phenotypes among roughly 600 nominal species and nearly two dozen genera or subgenera. More recent research, particularly the work of Mayr, Gould, Woodruff, Goodfriend, as well as their students and collaborators addressed more basic biological questions, among them the origins as well as the geographic and temporal stability of morphological and genetic diversity, and the dynamics of hybrid zones and biogeographic patterns, both Holocene and Recent' (Cerion Research page, National Museum of Natural History Department of Invertebrate Zoology Web site). 'Cerion's exuberant morphological diversity (600 described species ) combined with the extreme rarity of reproductive isolation among morphotypes (only one unambiguous case of sympatry in the Bahamas) has long made this genus an object of fascination for evolutionists and of frustration for taxonomists. We have pursued an integrated approach of genetic and morphometric study based on field investigations of ecology and biogeography in the Bahamas. Cerion's morphotypes are not distributed haphazardly, but show definite patterns of correlation with habitat and geography. Although all morphotypes interbreed, hybrid zones tend to be narrow and characterized by highly local genetic anomalies unique alleles present in neither parental population. Different patterns of covariance in ontogeny, and habitat preferences, also indicate mat the morphotypes are distinctive, non-amalgamating entities (despite little difference in the frequencies of structural genes among them) that may be called species once a definition based on strict reproductive isolation is abandoned. Variation in structural genes, anatomy and morphology is non-concordant, but orderly for each criterion. Similar morphologies are often polyphyletic and evolved repeatedly as one possible ontogenetic route within a developmental program common to all Cerion. Although we cannot always distinguish among competing causes for observed patterns, we can establish genetic, morphological, anatomical, and biogeographic criteria for decisions when adequate evidence is available. The species of Cerion will be reduced by more than an order of magnitude from a list currently described' (Abstract). Seller Inventory # 25327
Contact seller
Report this item