Preface to the Princeton Landmarks in Biology Edition vii Preface xi Symbols Used xiii 1. The Importance of Islands 3 2. Area and Number of Speicies 8 3. Further Explanations of the Area-Diversity Pattern 19 4. The Strategy of Colonization 68 5. Invasibility and the Variable Niche 94 6. Stepping Stones and Biotic Exchange 123 7. Evolutionary Changes Following Colonization 145 8. Prospect 181 Glossary 185 References 193 Index 201

The Theory of Island Biogeography

The Quark and the Jaguar

Extensive water use may alter stream flows so that areas used by spawning salmonids are dewatered, thus exposing intergravel development phases to suddenly changed physical and chemical conditions. Environmental alteration may result in considerable mortality, particularly of the more vulnerable post-hatch phases. Five documented case histories of redd dewatering are reviewed. The primary conditions in the gravel that influence survival during dewatering are residual flow, moisture retention, temperature, gravel composition, dissolved oxygen, alevin behavior, and species characteristics. These factors are discussed and their complex relationships are evaluated. Considerable variation in intergravel conditions can be expected during dewatering at different locations. Onsite studies are needed to obtain data for assessment of potential impacts in other dewatering situations, and for development of effective mitigation procedures. 4 figs.

Environmental biology of fishes

Domestication of mammals such as cattle, dogs, pigs and horses preceded that of fishes by at least 10000 years. The first domesticated fish was the common carp Cyprinus carpio. Initially it was held as an exploited captive and did not undergo major changes in body shape or colour variations. About 2000 years ago, wild common carp were most abundant in the inland delta of the Danube River. These fish were torpedo shaped, golden-yellow in colour and had two pairs of barbels and a mesh-like scale pattern. Large schools of them thrived and reproduced on the flood plains of the Danube. The Romans kept fishes in specially built ponds at that time. The common carp was an ideal candidate and its rearing became more popular in medieval times. Common carp culture gradually became the most profitable branch of agriculture in central Europe and many special ponds were built. Soon common carp were being produced in pond systems including spawning and growing ponds. Unintentional artificial selection had taken place between the 12th and mid-14th century, and deep bodied and variously scaled or scaleless domesticated forms appeared in nearly every pond system. Some colour aberrations appeared in the 1950s in Japan, which, as koi, became the most expensive of fish. Common carp were not originally domesticated in China but wild 'chi' Carassius auratus occasionally appeared as a xanthic form that, as the goldfish, has been known since 960 A.D. By the 1200s the fish were used as ornamental animals in the garden pools of rich landowners. Circa 1276 to 1546, the Chinese began keeping golden chi in aquarium-like vessels and soon rich and poor alike became breeders of the fancy domesticated goldfish. The variously shaped monstrosities and colour aberrants were freaks but they became very fashionable at that time and still are. Domesticated goldfish monstrosities were first exported from China to Japan and much later to Europe and around the world. More recently other species have been domesticated by aquarists, such as the guppy Poecilia reticulata or the neon tetra Paracheirodon innesi. Other fishes kept as ornamentals, like swordtails Xiphophorus hellerii and platies Xiphophorus maculatus, the discus and angelfishes (Cichlidae), as well as those cultured for food like the rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss, channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus or sturgeons (Acipenseridae) are merely exploited captives.

About the oldest domesticates among fishes.

The guild concept is explained to represent peaks in the landscape of reproductive styles, which respond to the ‘altricial ⇄ precocial principle’ caused by the processes of heterochrony and saltation Guilds represent evolutionary trends but not units New evidence for a specialization within the mouthbrooding external bearers is reviewed, eg the unique specialization of juvenile feeding inside the female's buccal cavity Ability to withstand extreme environments is revealed in some water-edge spawners and a new guild of nonguarding aerophils is distinguished The walleye is placed into another guild and the significance of spawning inside of sponges discussed Due to a better understanding of reproductive styles used by some external bearers, termed earlier as forehead, skin and possibly armpit and backpack brooders, a single guild of auxiliary brooders is named The classification of internal bearers is revised into four redefined and renamed guilds — facultative internal bearers, obligate lecithotrophic livebearers, matrotrophous oophages and adephophages, and viviparous trophoderms

Additions and amendments to the classification of reproductive styles in fishes

The view that development proceeds gradually is so engraved in our minds that any other possibility is not only treated with disbelief but viewed with distaste. Gould (1977, p. 409) put it admirably: ‘The reconciliation of our gradualistic bias with the appearance of discontinuity is a classical problem of intellectual history. We have sought to reduce the external phenomena of saltation to an underlying continuity of process to reduce the qualitative to the quantitative. Philosophies of change and progress have wrestled with this dilemma and have tried to resolve it by formulating such laws as the ‘transformation of quantity into quality’ of the Hegelian dialectic: the addition of quantitative steps will lead eventually to a qualitative leap . ..‘. It seems it is more comfortable to believe that ontogeny and phylogeny are gradual. Gradual ontogeny can be ‘proved’ by arbitrarily and leisurely sampling a sequence of stages, gradual phylogeny by expectations of finding every ‘missing link’. First, to alleviate the bad taste, I propose to talk of saltation instead of discontinuity. Saltation (Liem 1974, Ruse 1977) seems to be a better term for this phenomenon because it means ‘an advance by a leap or leaps rather than by continuous gradation’. Development is not interrupted, but merely ‘advancing in spurts’ (Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, 1960). The theory was first applied to the ontogeny of fishes by Vasnetsov (1953)’ and Kryzhanovsky et al. (1953). They invented a sequence of ‘etapes’ of quantitative morphogenesis and growth, separated by a combination of brief but distinct qualitative changes in a developmental process. Brody (1945) and Martin

The theory of saltation and its application in the ontogeny of fishes: steps and thresholds

When I started the journal ‘Environmental Biology of Fishes’ more than 25 years ago, it was designed to avoid any prejudices and scientific dogmas, to keep an open mind, and to allow publication of ideas that are irritating to followers of the so-called ‘mainstream’, ideas that few other journals dared to touch (Balon 1976, 1989d). While such articles in the journal were often ignored by the ‘mainstream’ practitioners and the political establishment, none was ever opposed or proven wrong. As in many similar cases before, only time will show if these contributions were valid and of value to the advancement of knowledge. I have often wondered why it takes so long for some of the universal facts and ideas to be accepted or even to be known. I have come to believe that like with many textbooks some facts and conclusions are copied from one book to the next (as in the case of the origin of the common carp – Balon 1974, 1995a,b) without knowing or admitting that in the meantime new facts require new syntheses and conclusions. Even good scholars resist unknown facts or ideas. It is irritating that one's knowledge is inadequate or that others beat us to be first. I have wondered why wrong ideas persist for so long; but Bateson (1979, p. 206) already explained it to his daughter ‘... yes, your image of evolution is exact. And what Darwin called “natural selection” is the surfacing of the tautology or presupposition that what stays true longer does indeed stay true longer than what stays true not so long’. After all it was Jean Baptiste ‘Lamarckgrave, the founder of evolutionary theory, miserable, old, and blind, ...’ (Bateson 1972, p. xii) and/or Gottfried Treviranus who presented the truth long before the privileged Charles Darwin, alas in ‘wrong’ languages. Over time, ignoring the truth became fashionable and the question which of the four theories of evolution (Lovtrup 1982) can be attributed to Darwin, if any, irrelevant. ‘It is’ [exclaims Croizat 1977, transl. 1987, p. 137] ‘a gross, very grave mistake to confuse Darwin as a historical figure with Darwin as an exalted figure of the thinking of biology’ (Croizat's italics). Nearly 30 years ago a BBC TV series and book on evolution glorified Darwin and molecular biology. Calder (1973, p. 9), the author of this book entitled ‘The life game: evolution and the new biology’ felt that Darwin ‘would [merely] need to know about the survival of the quickest, when it came to crossing the street’. But the street was never crossed! Many TV viewers of the recent PBS series ‘Evolution’ were again misled into believing that evolution was discovered by Darwin. Even Gould (2001) in the ‘Introduction’ and the producer Hutton (2001) in the ‘Foreword’ to the companion book of this series (Zimmer 2001) give the ‘Darwinian evolution’ [sic] an expose it hardly deserves. While such views have been repeatedly proven wrong, most scholars, with the exception of a few scientists, philosophers, and journalists, comfortably assume Darwin's priority in spite of numerous published evidences to the contrary. This myth is then fed to the general public. The following retrospective essay attempts to compile proofs in support of the evolutionary processes other than Darwin's natural selection and the gene-centric ‘new synthesis’, old by now as it is.

Epigenetic Processes, when Natura Non Facit Saltum Becomes a Myth, and Alternative Ontogenies a Mechanism of Evolution

A single cell – an egg – cannot be in the same stabilized state as a differentiated multicellular embryo or reproducing adult. The entire ontogeny must, therefore, consist of a sequence of stabilized states. Ontogeny of a phenotype cannot progress gradually but is a saltatory homeorhetic system, proceeding via natural thresholds from one self organized state to the next, hierarchically ever more complex and specialized. The natural boundaries of ontogeny – the far-from-stabilized thresholds – represent also states when changes can be easiest inserted or induced, and especially in the early ontogeny, from the intervals where evolution (change) can occur. As a result, ontogeny can also be divided into distinct life-history intervals called periods, be it embryo, larva (infant, pup), juvenile, adult and senescence, each divided in turn into phases, and each of these into natural steps. It is left to the imagination of scholars in social sciences to find parallels of saltation in economics and history.

Saltatory Ontogeny and the Life-History Model: Neglected Processes and Patterns of Evolution

In the last 25 years, criticism of most theories advanced by Darwin and the neo-Darwinians has increased considerably, and so did their defense. Darwinism has become an ideology, while the most significant theories of Darwin were proven unsupportable. The critics advanced other theories instead of 'natural selection' and the survival of the fittest'. 'Saltatory ontogeny' and 'epigenesis' are such new theories proposed to explain how variations in ontogeny and novelties in evolution are created. They are reviewed again in the present essay that also tries to explain how Darwinians, artificially kept dominant in academia and in granting agencies, are preventing their acceptance. Epigenesis, the mechanism of ontogenies, creates in every generation alternative variations in a saltatory way that enable the organisms to survive in the changing environments as either altricial or precocial forms. The constant production of two such forms and their survival in different environments makes it possible, over a sequence of generations, to introduce changes and establish novelties--the true phenomena of evolution. The saltatory units of evolution remain far-from-stable structures capable of self-organization and self-maintenance (autopoiesis).

/pdf/evolution-by-epigenesis-farewell-to-darwinism-neo-and-3w7zewkdy1.pdf

Eugene K. Balon

Papers

The theory of saltation and its application in the ontogeny of fishes: steps and thresholds

Epigenetic Processes, when Natura Non Facit Saltum Becomes a Myth, and Alternative Ontogenies a Mechanism of Evolution

Saltatory Ontogeny and the Life-History Model: Neglected Processes and Patterns of Evolution

Evolution by epigenesis: farewell to Darwinism, neo- and otherwise.