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This book presents the theoretical foundations of the biological systematics. The history, structure and main tasks of systematics are summarized. Briefly reviewed are the philosophical foundations of systematics and the structure and content of taxonomic theories.

Everyone uses species names and yet there are communication gaps between those who who name species and those who use species names. This book is intended to explore why different groups of scientists understand and use taxa in very different ways, and the consequences for measuring and understanding biodiversity.

The complex idea of "e;species"e; has evolved over time, yet its meaning is far from resolved. This comprehensive work takes a fresh look at an idea central to the field of biology by tracing its history from antiquity to today. John S. Wilkins explores the essentialist view, a staple of logic from Plato and Aristotle through the Middle Ages to fairly recent times, and considers the idea of species in natural history-a concept often connected to reproduction. Tracing "e;generative conceptions"e; of species back through Darwin to Epicurus, Wilkins provides a new perspective on the relationship between philosophical and biological approaches to this concept. He also reviews the array of current definitions. Species is a benchmark exploration and clarification of a concept fundamental to the past, present, and future of the natural sciences.

To unravel the complex shared history of the Earth and its life forms, biogeographers analyze patterns of biodiversity, species distribution, and geological history. So far, the field of biogeography has been fragmented into divergent systematic and evolutionary approaches, with no overarching or unifying research theme or method. In this text, Lynne Parenti and Malte Ebach address this discord and outline comparative tools to unify biogeography. Rooted in phylogenetic systematics, this comparative biogeographic approach offers a comprehensive empirical framework for discovering and deciphering the patterns and processes of the distribution of life on Earth. The authors cover biogeography from its fundamental ideas to the most effective ways to implement them. Real-life examples illustrate concepts and problems, including the first comparative biogeographical analysis of the Indo-West Pacific, an introduction to biogeographical concepts rooted in the earth sciences, and the integration of phylogeny, evolution and earth history.

Molecular studies reveal highly ordered geographic patterns in plant and animal distributions. The tropics illustrate these patterns of community immobilism leading to allopatric differentiation, as well as other patterns of mobilism, range expansion, and overlap of taxa. Integrating Earth history and biogeography, Molecular Panbiogeography of the Tropics is an alternative view of distributional history in which groups are older than suggested by fossils and fossil-calibrated molecular clocks. The author discusses possible causes for the endemism of high-level taxa in tropical America and Madagascar, and overlapping clades in South America, Africa, and Asia. The book concludes with a critique of adaptation by selection, founded on biogeography and recent work in genetics.

Comparative biology became overtly evolutionary in the mid-19th century following acceptance of the ideas of Charles Darwin by Ernst Haeckel. During the next 100 years, these evolutionary concepts changed and inspired Phylogenetic Systematics-a body of work exemplified by the publications of Willi Hennig. This book is a synthesis and chronicle o

Everyone uses species names and yet there are communication gaps between those who who name species and those who use species names. This book is intended to explore why different groups of scientists understand and use taxa in very different ways, and the consequences for measuring and understanding biodiversity.

This book is an extended argument for abandoning the species rank. Instead, the author proposes that the rank of "species" be replaced by a pluralistic and multi-level view. In such a view, all clades including the smallest identifiable one would be named and studied within a phylogenetic context.

A goal of macroevolutionary theory is to explain both diversity and disparity ¿ different sometimes uncorrelated characteristics of lineages. These actively researched questions, the growing number of case studies, and the increasingly rigorous theory, has resulted in the re-examination of classical models for evolutionary tempo and mode. Time-calibrated molecular phylogenies are now used in conjunction with quantitative analyses of morphology to evaluate models of evolution. For example, mathematically simple efforts to understand biologically complex traits (such as body size) are common. The major objective of the proposed work is to present novel methods and case-studies of the tempo and mode of evolution of complex morphologies. Recent innovations in methods for describing and modeling complex morphologies, which have the potential to advance the field still further, will be the primary focus of this intended volume.

At a time when selectionist explanations are being brought forward to explain an ever-widening range of phenomena, this book analyzes the explanatory structure of Darwin¿s theory of natural selection. It shows there are aspects of the theory that are not totally understood, creating problems in contemporary uses of the theory to explain the world. It takes a much-needed thoughtful look into the working parts of the theory of natural selection to provide better understanding of the theory and its role in contemporary science and life.

Aims to make sense of the rise of phylogenetic systematics - its methods, its objects of study, and its theoretical foundations - with contributions from historians, philosophers, and biologists. This title also aims to provide frameworks for answering the question: how did systematics become phylogenetic?