TY - BOOK ID - 77890514 TI - Evolution's wedge : competition and the origins of diversity AU - Pfennig, David W. AU - Pfennig, Karin S. PY - 2012 SN - 128358414X 0520954041 9780520954045 0520274180 9780520274181 9781283584142 9780520274181 PB - Berkeley : University of California Press, DB - UniCat KW - Animal diversity. KW - Competition (Biology) KW - Divergence (Biology) KW - Biotic competition KW - Ecological competition KW - Interspecific competition KW - Intraspecific competition KW - Species competition KW - Struggle for survival (Biology) KW - Survival, Struggle for (Biology) KW - Population biology KW - Species KW - Biology KW - Phylogeny KW - Animal biodiversity KW - Animal biological diversity KW - Animals KW - Diversity, Animal KW - Faunal diversity KW - Zoological diversity KW - Biodiversity KW - Diversity KW - biodiversity. KW - biographical. KW - biology books. KW - books for science lovers. KW - conservation of environment. KW - darwin theories. KW - discussion books. KW - easy to read. KW - ecological communities. KW - educational books. KW - engaging. KW - environmental ecology. KW - evolution of biology. KW - evolution of science. KW - food chain. KW - going green. KW - history. KW - home school science books. KW - learning from experts. KW - leisure reads. KW - life sciences. KW - maintaining biodiversity. KW - nonfiction books. KW - protecting animals. KW - scientists. KW - the importance of the environment. KW - travels books. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:77890514 AB - Evolutionary biology has long sought to explain how new traits and new species arise. Darwin maintained that competition is key to understanding this biodiversity and held that selection acting to minimize competition causes competitors to become increasingly different, thereby promoting new traits and new species. Despite Darwin's emphasis, competition's role in diversification remains controversial and largely underappreciated. In their synthetic and provocative book, evolutionary ecologists David and Karin Pfennig explore competition's role in generating and maintaining biodiversity. The authors discuss how selection can lessen resource competition or costly reproductive interactions by promoting trait evolution through a process known as character displacement. They further describe character displacement's underlying genetic and developmental mechanisms. The authors then consider character displacement's myriad downstream effects, ranging from shaping ecological communities to promoting new traits and new species and even fueling large-scale evolutionary trends. Drawing on numerous studies from natural populations, and written for a broad audience, Evolution's Wedge seeks to inspire future research into character displacement's many implications for ecology and evolution. ER -