Just over one hundred and thirty years ago Charles Darwin, in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), developed remarkably accurate conclusions about man's ancestry, based on a review of general comparative anatomy and psychology in which he regarded sexual selection as a necessary part of the evolutionary process. But the attention of biologists turned to the more general concept of natural selection, in which sexual selection plays a complex role that has been little understood. This volume significantly broadens the scope of modern evolutionary biology by looking at this important and long neglected concept of great importance. In this book, which is the first full discussion of sexual selection since 1871, leading biologists bring modern genetic theory and behavior observation to bear on the subject. The distinguished authors consider many aspects of sexual selection in many species, including man, within the context of contemporary evolutionary theory and research. The result is a remarkably original and well-rounded view of the whole concept that will be invaluable especially to students of evolution and human sexual behavior. The lucid authority of the contributors and the importance of the topic will interest all who share in man's perennial fascination with his own history. The book will be of central importance to a wide variety of professionals, including biologists, anthropologists, and geneticists. It will be an invaluable supplementary text for courses in vertebrate biology, theory of evolution, genetics, and physical anthropology. It is especially important with the emergence of alternative explanations of human development, under the rubric of creationism and doctrines of intelligent design.

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Sexual selection and the descent of man, 1871-1971

Sympatric native Anolis species with similar structural habitats but contrasting climatic habitats are closer in head and body size on species—rich than on depauperate islands. In two localities, sympatric Anolis species with differential occurrences in sun or shade sought lower, more shaded perches during midday, resulting in partly nonsynchronous utilization of the vegetation by the two species. The second observation may be related to the first in the following way: nonsynchronous spatial overlap could dictate relatively great resource overlap for species coinhabiting patchy or edge areas, requiring great differences between the species in prey size in addition to those in climatic habitat. The extent of such overlap on small depauperate islands could be greater if these contained a greater proportion of patchy or edge habitats (with respect to insolation), or if climatic preferences were broader and more overlapping than on large, species—rich islands. In each locality, the relatively more shade—inhab...

Nonsynchronous Spatial Overlap of Lizards in Patchy Habitats

We reviewed 725 papers published since Cowles and Bogert's paper on thermal tolerance (R.B. Cowles and C.M. Bogert. 1944. Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. 83: 261–296) to create a data base of studies tha...

The critical thermal maximum: history and critique

A summary of body temperatures of reptiles has been made on the basis of some 9000 body, air, soil, and water temperatures taken or recorded in the literature for 161 species of reptiles. The range and mean body temperature for the various groups of reptiles are: tur- tles: 8.0 to 37.8, mean: 28.4; Sphenodon: 6.2 to 18.0, mean: 12.5; American alligator: 26-37, mean: between 32 and 35; snakes: 9.0 to 38.0, mean: 25.6; lizards: 11.0 to 46.4, mean 29.1. There are often specific, generic, and family differences in thermal tolerances and prefer- ences, though some reptiles show wide ranges of thermal tolerance with no "preferred" body temperature, while others have narrow activity ranges and preferences. With an increase in thermal preference, there is usually an associated increase in the critical thermal maximum. Forms with low thermal preference usually have low critical minima and are usually found in colder areas and in colder seasons than those with high thermal preferences. In terms of their thermoregulatory behavior, reptiles can be grouped into: burrowing forms; aquatic forms not selecting temperatures; aquatic forms selecting temperatures; aquatic forms which bask at surface or on shore; nocturnal thigmothermic forms; nocturnal thigmothermic forms that occasionally bask; diurnal, primarily thigmothermic forms that occa- sionally bask and become crepuscular or nocturnal as hot seasons de- velop; diurnal non-baskers; diurnal limited baskers; and true helio- thermic baskers. Thermoregulation in reptiles is both behavioral (emergence, retreat, selection of temperatures, basking, orientation, postural changes, etc.) and physiological (evaporative cooling, vasomotor responses affecting rates of heating, and cooling, and limited heat production in brooding female Indian pythons).

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2423461.pdf

Body Temperatures of Reptiles

Several investigators have dealt in a theoretical way with the evolution of reproductive rates and attendant life history phenomena (Cole, 1954; Lack, 1954, 1966, 1968; Murphy, 1968; Svardson, 1949; Williams, 1966a, 1966b). Tinkle (1969a) has applied evolutionary principles in an attempt to construct a general theory of the evolution of single-broodedness and iteroparity, of viviparity, and of clutch size and clutch number in lizards. Most of the data presented by him were qualitative. In this paper we pose a series of questions concerning reproductive strategies which have evolved among one group of vertebrates (the lizards), and provide quantitative data to answer them. We further present comparable data from birds, the vertebrate group most thoroughly studied in this respect. Finally, we suggest the weaknesses in studies of reptilian reproduction in the hope of stimulating future workers to collect data that are essential to answer these specific questions.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1558-5646.1970.tb01740.x

Harold Frederick Hirth

Papers

The Ecology of Two Lizards on a Tropical Beach