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

So far in this course we have dealt entirely with the evolution of characters that are controlled by simple Mendelian inheritance at a single locus. There are notes on the course website about gametic disequilibrium and how allele frequencies change at two loci simultaneously, but we didn’t discuss them. In every example we’ve considered we’ve imagined that we could understand something about evolution by examining the evolution of a single gene. That’s the domain of classical population genetics. For the next few weeks we’re going to be exploring a field that’s actually older than classical population genetics, although the approach we’ll be taking to it involves the use of population genetic machinery. If you know a little about the history of evolutionary biology, you may know that after the rediscovery of Mendel’s work in 1900 there was a heated debate between the “biometricians” (e.g., Galton and Pearson) and the “Mendelians” (e.g., de Vries, Correns, Bateson, and Morgan). Biometricians asserted that the really important variation in evolution didn’t follow Mendelian rules. Height, weight, skin color, and similar traits seemed to

Human biochemical genetics

There is now ample evidence of the ecological impacts of recent climate change, from polar terrestrial to tropical marine environments. The responses of both flora and fauna span an array of ecosystems and organizational hierarchies, from the species to the community levels. Despite continued uncertainty as to community and ecosystem trajectories under global change, our review exposes a coherent pattern of ecological change across systems. Although we are only at an early stage in the projected trends of global warming, ecological responses to recent climate change are already clearly visible.

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Ecological responses to recent climate change.

In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.

Thinking fast and slow.

Human-dominated marine ecosystems are experiencing accelerating loss of populations and species, with largely unknown consequences. We analyzed local experiments, long-term regional time series, and global fisheries data to test how biodiversity loss affects marine ecosystem services across temporal and spatial scales. Overall, rates of resource collapse increased and recovery potential, stability, and water quality decreased exponentially with declining diversity. Restoration of biodiversity, in contrast, increased productivity fourfold and decreased variability by 21%, on average. We conclude that marine biodiversity loss is increasingly impairing the ocean's capacity to provide food, maintain water quality, and recover from perturbations. Yet available data suggest that at this point, these trends are still reversible.

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Impacts of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services.

Fish have been shown to discriminate between individuals on very general bases such as species, body length and colour. More recently, evidence has been accumulating from a number of species that relatedness and familiarity may be extremely important in mediating a range of interactions between individual fish. Studies have shown that fish are able to recognize kin and/or familiars, and that this ability potentially conveys significant benefits, including increased inclusive fitness, reduced inbreeding costs, reduced competition and enhanced antipredator behaviour. Here, we review the literature and consider future directions and applications for this research.

The effects of kin and familiarity on interactions between fish

Reinventing fisheries management

Field Trials of Fish Marking using a Jet Inoculator

Contributors. Series Foreword. Preface. General Introduction. Species change and fisheries in African Lakes: outline of the issues. Part One:- introduced Nile perch in Lake Victoria: Impacts on biodiversity and evaluation of the fishery: Impact of environmental change, species introductions and ecological interactions on the fish stocks of Lake Victoria. Limnological changes in Lake Victoria since the Nile perch introduction. Impact of fish species introductions on the tilapias of Lake Victoria and Kyoga. Diversity and stability of fish stocks in Lake Victoria, Kyoga and Nabugabo after establishment of introduced species. Dynamics of the haplochromine cichlid fauna and other ecological changes in the Mwanza Gulf of Lake Victoria. An analysis of species change in Lake Victoria: did the Nile perch act alone?. Analysis of species change in Lake Victoria using ECOPATH, a multispecies trophic model. Assessment of the Nile perch fishery in Lake Victoria. Thirty years on: the development of the Nile perch fishery in Lake Victoria. Socio-economic impacts of introduced species in Lake Victoria fisheries. Part Two:- evaluation of species change in other African lakes with introduced fish species: Inshore fish population and species changes in Lake Kariba, Zimbabwe. The impact of an introduction of sardine into Lake Kivu. The persistence of two introduced tilapia species in Lake Naivasha, Kenya, in the face of environmental variability and fishing pressure. Species change in reservoir fisheries following impoundment: the case of Lake Itezhi-tezhi, Zambia. Part Three:- evaluation of species changes in African lakes without introduced species: Changes in species composition and abundance of fish populations in Lake Turkana, Kenya. Management, conservation and species changes of exploited fish stocks in Lake Malawi. Changes in demersal cichlid communities as a result of trawling in southern Lake Malawi. Changes in species composition and abundance as a consequence of fishing in Lake Malombe, Malawi. Effects of exploitation on the pelagic fish community in the south of Lake Tanganyika. Changes in the pelagic fisheries of northern Lake Tanganyika during the 1980s. Part Four:- overviews of fish introductions in African Lakes: Genetic impacts of fish introductions: a perspective on African lakes. Fish introductions in the African Greak Lakes: some special characteristics. Thinking th unthinkable: a candidate model for predicting sustainable yields of introduced fish species in African lakes. Why is Limnothrissa miodon such a successful introduced species and is there anywhere else we should put it? Appendix: summary of characteristics of major African lakes. Author index. Species index. Subject index.

The impact of species changes in African lakes

In this study, pairs of juvenile sticklebacks either familiar with each other or pairs unfamiliar with each other met to share a food source. The study showed that sticklebacks were less aggressive towards a partner when sharing a common food source with a familiar conspecific, compared to when sharing a food source with an unfamiliar conspecific. The results showed that the aggressive behaviour was built up and broken down gradually depending on how long the two competitors had been together or apart. A decrease in aggressiveness was found after the sticklebacks had been together two weeks, with a further decrease after four weeks together. Conversely there was an increase in aggressiveness after the sticklebacks had been parted for two weeks or four weeks. The chance of food being equally distributed between the competing pairs increased with time spent together and decreased with time parted. The observed decrease or increase in the amount of aggression is discussed as a build-up or a breakdown of rank knowledge or of a co-operative partnership.

Paul J. B. Hart

Papers

The effects of kin and familiarity on interactions between fish

Reinventing fisheries management

Field Trials of Fish Marking using a Jet Inoculator

The impact of species changes in African lakes

The effects of familiarity on competitive interactions between threespined sticklebacks