Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Improbable Destinies
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 12/7/1961
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://oeb.harvard.edu/people/jonathan-losos * https://lososlab.oeb.harvard.edu/people/jonathan-losos * https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/2133616/jonathan-b-losos * https://www.npr.org/2017/09/07/549250035/biologist-jonathan-losos-explores-convergent-evolution-in-improbable-destinies
RESEARCHER NOTES:
| LC control no.: | n 2006089348 |
|---|---|
| LCCN Permalink: | https://lccn.loc.gov/n2006089348 |
| HEADING: | Losos, Jonathan B. |
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| 001 | 7028282 |
| 005 | 20130611162838.0 |
| 008 | 061122n| azannaabn |n aaa |
| 010 | __ |a n 2006089348 |
| 040 | __ |a DLC |b eng |c DLC |d DLC |e rda |
| 046 | __ |f 1961 |
| 100 | 1_ |a Losos, Jonathan B. |
| 670 | __ |a The living world, 2007: |b ECIP t.p. (Jonathan B. Losos) |
| 670 | __ |a The Princeton guide to evolution, 2014: |b ECIP t.p. (Jonathan B. Losos, Harvard University) dataview (b. 1961) |
PERSONAL
Born December 7, 1961, in St. Louis, MO.
EDUCATION:Harvard University, A.B., 1984; University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D., 1989.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and academic. Washington University, St. Louis, MO, assistant professor, 1992-97, associate professor, 1997-2001, professor, 2001-06, Environmental Studies Program, chair, 2003-05; Tyson Research Center, director, 2004-05; William H. Danforth Distinguished Professor, 2017—; Living Earth Collaborative, director, 2017–; Harvard University, Boston, MA, Monique and Philip Lehner Professor for the Study of Latin America, 2006-17, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, director of graduate studies, 2010-14; Museum of Comparative Zoology, curator of herpetology, 2006-17; Losos Laboratory, director.
University of California, Berkeley, teaching assistant, 1987-89; Smithsonian Institution Museum of Natural History, research associate, 1995-2007.
American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (board of governors, 1992-95), Organization for Tropical Studies (director, 1995-2007), National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (board of science advisors, 1999-2002), Sustainable Ecosystems Institute (conservation science panel, 2000—), Soundprint Media, Inc. (science advisory panel, 2005—), National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (science board, 2005-08), National Geographic Society (Committee for Research and Exploration, 2009—), American Society of Naturalists (president, 2010), Henry S. Fitch Excellence in Herpetology Award Committee, American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (2010–12, chair, 2012), Life on Earth (science advisory board, 2010—), American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (special publications committee, 2016—).
Compton Fellowship Committee (1994-99, chairman, 1995-99), Committee on the Undergraduate Curriculum in Arts and Sciences (1997), Center for Applied Human Values (advisory board, 2003-06), Center for Scientific Parallel Computing (advisory committee, 2003-04), GIS Advisory Committee (2004-05), Princeton University Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (advisory board, 2007-13), Harvard OEB Seminar Committee (chair, 2009-14; committee member, 2015—), Harvard Environmental Science and Public Policy Board of Tutors (2011—), David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (policy committee member, 2014), Broad Institute (associate, 2015—), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2014—, chair, 2016—), Harvard University Press Board of Syndics (2015—), Princeton University Press Monographs in Population Biology (advisory board, 2016—), Mexican Research Fellows Program (selection committee, 2017—).
AWARDS:Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize, Society for the Study of Evolution, 1991; David Starr Jordan Prize, 1998; Forty Under Forty Award, St. Louis Business Journal, 1999; Innovation Award, St. Louis Academy of Sciences, 2001; Special Recognition for Excellence in Mentoring, Graduate School Senate, Washington University, 2003, 2004; Edward Osborne Wilson Naturalist Award, American Society of Naturalists, 2009; Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal, National Academy of Sciences, 2012; Distinguished Herpetologist Award, Herpetologists’ League, 2016; received grants from World Wildlife Fund, 1985, Sigma Xi, 1987, 1988, American Museum of Natural History, 1987, Center for Latin American Studies, 1987, 1989, University of California, Berkeley, 1987, National Science Foundation, 1989, National Science Foundation, 1994-99, 1995, 1995-97, 1997-99, 1999-2001, 1999-2004, 2000-01, 2000-02, 2000-05, 2003–05, 2005-08, 2005-09, 2006-08, 2008-10, 2010-15, 2011-12, 2011-14, 2014-17, National Geographic Society, 1996-97, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, 2001-02, Australian Research Council, 2006-09, and John Templeton Foundation, 2015-17; University of California, Davis, postdoctoral fellow, 1990-92; Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research fellow, 1993-97; David and Lucile Packard Foundation fellow, 1994-99; Saint Louis Zoological Park conservation fellow, 2003—; American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow, 2005; John Simon Guggenheim fellow, 2005; American Academy of Arts and Sciences fellow, 2012.
WRITINGS
Associate editor of Evolution, 1998-2000, and American Naturalist, 1998-2002; editor for American Naturalist, 2002-06, Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 2007—, and Brevoria, 2007—; editorial board member for Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia, 2009-12; reviewing editorial board member for Science, 2010; editor in chief for Oxford Bibliographies in Evolutionary Biology, 2011-15; guest editor for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2016.
Contributor to books, including The Living World and Essentials of the Living World.
Also contributor to periodicals, including New York Times, Ecology Letters, Landscape Ecology, Ecology, American Naturalist, Breviora, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, Science, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Evolution, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, PLoS Biology, and Nature.
SIDELIGHTS
Jonathan B. Losos has devoted his professional work to the study of biology—or, more specifically, the evolutionary branch of biology. He has been aligned with Harvard University, where he led classes in his field while also running his own lab, Losos Laboratory. In 2017 he was invited to Washington University (where he had previously taught) to lead the Living Earth Collaborative. In addition to his interest in evolutionary biology, Losos has also conducted a considerable amount of work within the discipline of herpetology. His written work has appeared in several periodicals, and he has edited and written numerous books, including How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society, The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited, and Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation in Anoles. In addition to his writings, Losos also contributes academically through his position as a board member of several scientific organizations.
One of Losos’s books, In the Light of Evolution: Essays from the Laboratory and Field, is slightly different from his usual works. While the book still pertains to science, the scientific process, and evolution, it is a touch more biographical. The book serves as a compilation of various essays penned by professionals specializing in the study of evolution. Each writer comes from a variety of specific fields, from paleontology to history. The majority of the essays featured In the Light of Evolution take a more personal approach to the discussion of science, as the writers talk about their goals for their careers, their accomplishments, and what led them down the path of becoming professional scientists in the first place. A reviewer in an issue of Nature called In the Light of Evolution “a valuable resource for non-specialists.” On the National Center for Biotechnology Information website, Michelle Tseng commented: “Losos has done a wonderful job putting together a book that’s sure to be found on the night tables of both armchair and seasoned scientists alike.”
The Princeton Guide to Evolution serves as an explanation of evolution for those who may or may not be as familiar with the concept. Losos played a part in editing The Princeton Guide to Evolution. The book covers a broad range of the most important and relevant topics to evolution, from how evolution has come to mold us in the present day to how life on Earth began. The Princeton Guide to Evolution contains all the material readers new to evolution (or just beginning to study it seriously) may need to better familiarize themselves with the concept, such as a list of other books to read if they want to expand their knowledge of any of the subjects discussed in the book and a dictionary of all essential jargon. Christine Sharbrough, a contributor to Library Journal, felt the book is “great for students and teachers of the subject.” Booklist reviewer Rebecca Vnuk said: “This dense and scholarly title is appropriate for most academic libraries serving upper-level science programs.” On the Israel Book Review website, Stephen Darori remarked: “Biology students will find this material helpful, and those with a desire to learn more about the history of life, genes, evolutionary processes, and the like might also find this a worthwhile title to peruse.”
Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution addresses the idea of evolution and illustrates how evolution works on a different scale from what many seem to believe. In fact, the book was inspired by Losos’s disagreement with one of the chief arguments presented by scientist Stephen Jay Gould. According to Gould, evolution is a random occurrence; upon hypothetically resetting the world as we know it, we might witness the unfolding of a world completely different from the norm, with different species evolving in totally new ways. Losos disagrees and bases his theorizing on various experiments he’s conducted in the past.
The book divides into several sections. One addresses and describes myriad experiments conducted by scientists interested in examining how evolution runs its course. Another section of the book takes a look at how various animal species (including human beings) came to evolve into what we know of (and exist as) today. BookPage contributor Henry L. Carrigan remarked: “Losos’ captivating study of evolution deserves to be read alongside the books of E.O. Wilson (The Social Conquest of Earth) and Stephen Jay Gould (Wonderful Life).” In an issue of Booklist, Bryce Christensen expressed that the book is “wonderfully lucid; singularly engaging.” A writer in Kirkus Reviews called the book a “cheerful, delightfully lucid primer on evolution and the predictive possibilities within the field.”
A Publishers Weekly reviewer observed: “The book is as enjoyable as it is informative, and it demonstrates how scientists think critically and assess data carefully.” Barbara J. King, writing in Washington Post, commented: “With an ideal combination of clarity and comedy, scholarly caution and infectious enthusiasm, Losos shows us how evolutionary biology opens up for each of us the glorious workings of our world, with surprises around every corner.” On the London Times website, Tom Whipple called Improbable Destinies a “fascinating and beautifully written book.” Online at the Washington Independent Review of Books website, Jennifer Bort Yacovissi called the book “a thoroughly accessible analysis of whether evolution is one big crapshoot or rather mundanely predictable.” Richard Carter, a writer on the Friends of Charles Darwin website, expressed that Improbable Destinities is “an entertaining book on an interesting subject.” Jon Wright, a contributor to the Geographical website, called Improbable Destinies an “engagingly written and always even-handed book.” On the Popular Science website, Brian Clegg commented: “This is a book that deserves to be widely read.” Uncommon Descent website contributor Kevin Padian remarked: “Improbable Destinies is deep, broad, brilliant and thought-provoking.” Matthew Cobb, a writer on the New Scientist website, said: “Not all evolution is convergent, he argues, and uniqueness does not imply destiny.” He concluded: “That seems about right.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
BioScience, September, 2010, Laurie J. Vitt, review of Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adaptive Radiation of Anoles, p. 653; December, 2010, David J. Currie, “The Glass Half Full,” review of The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited, p. 952.
Booklist, December 1, 2013, Rebecca Vnuk, review of The Princeton Guide to Evolution, p. 40; July 1, 2017, Bryce Christensen, review of Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution, p. 6.
BookPage, August, 2017, Henry L. Carrigan, review of Improbable Destinies, p. 26.
Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2017, review of Improbable Destinies.
Library Journal, October 15, 2013, Christine Sharbrough, review of The Princeton Guide to Evolution, p. 132.
Nature, January 20, 2011, review of In the Light of Evolution: Essays from the Laboratory and Field, p. 295.
Publishers Weekly, May 22, 2017, review of Improbable Destinies, p. 85.
Reference & Research Book News, April, 2014, review of The Princeton Guide to Evolution.
Washington Post, August 28, 2017, Barbara J. King, “Book World: Lassoing Lizards to Explore the Mysteries of Evolution,” review of Improbable Destinies.
ONLINE
BioOne, http://www.bioone.org/ (December 1, 2010), David J. Currie, review of The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited.
Friends of Charles Darwin, http://friendsofdarwin.com/ (August 22, 2017), Richard Carter, review of Improbable Destinies.
Geographical, http://geographical.co.uk/ (September 13, 2017), Jon Wright, review of Improbable Destinies.
Guardian (London, England), https://www.theguardian.com/ (April 9, 2015), “Island Biogeography Revisited: An Online Experiment.”
Harvard University Website, https://oeb.harvard.edu/ (February 21, 2018), author profile.
The Hoopoe, https://blog.nhbs.com/ (December 4, 2017), “Improbable Destinies: An Interview with Jonathan B. Losos,” author interview.
Israel Book Review, http://israelbookreview.blogspot.com/ (May 18, 2017), Stephen Darori, review of The Princeton Guide to Evolution.
Losos Laboratory Website, https://lososlab.oeb.harvard.edu/ (February 21, 2018), author profile.
National Center for Biotechnology Information Website, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ (May 1, 2011), Michelle Tseng, review of In the Light of Evolution.
National Science Teachers Association Website, http://www.nsta.org/ (October 21, 2016), Rita Hoots, review of How Evolution Shapes Our Lives.
New Scientist, https://www.newscientist.com/ (October 18, 2017), Matthew Cobb, “Is Evolution about Chance or Fate? Well, It Depends,” review of Improbable Destinies.
NPR Website, https://www.npr.org/ (September 7, 2017), Robert Siegel, “Biologist Jonathan Losos Explores ‘Convergent Evolution’ in ‘Improbable Destinies,'” author interview.
Penguin Random House Website, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/ (February 21, 2018), author profile.
Popular Science, http://popsciencebooks.blogspot.com/ (August 5, 2017), Brian Clegg, review of Improbable Destinies.
Science, http://blogs.sciencemag.org/ (July 25, 2017), Adrian Woolfson, “Inevitable or Improbable? A Biologist Sheds Light on the Evolutionary Likelihood of Human Existence,” review of Improbable Destinies.
St. Louis Today, http://www.stltoday.com/ (August 11, 2017), Jane Henderson, “Learning from Lizards: St. Louis Native Studies Evolution in Real Time.”
Times (London, England), https://www.thetimes.co.uk/ (July 23 2017), Bryan Appleyard, review of Improbable Destinies; (August 5, 2017), Tom Whipple, review of Improbable Destinies.
Uncommon Descent, https://uncommondescent.com/ (August 22, 2017), Kevin Padian, “Convergence or Parallelism?: Kevin Padian at Nature on Jonathan Losos’ Improbable Destinies,” review of Improbable Destinies.
Washington Independent Review of Books, http://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/ (August 30, 2017), Jennifer Bort Yacovissi, review of Improbable Destinies.
Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/ (August 25, 2017), Barbara J. King, “Does Evolution Bring the Same Results No Matter What?,” review of Improbable Destinies.
Washington University in St. Louis Website, https://wubio.wustl.edu, author faculty profile.
Jonathan Losos
Visiting Scholar
Jonathan Losos
Support: Jared Hughes
My research concerns the origin and maintenance of biological diversity: where do species come from, what directs the evolutionary course they take, and what ongoing ecological processes affect them today? To study such questions, my laboratory integrates approaches from systematics, ecology, behavior, genetics and functional morphology, taking both observational and experimental approaches in the field and in the laboratory. In many respects, lizards are ideal organisms for such synthetic studies.
Recent Publications
Kolbe, J.J., P. VanMiddlesworth, A.C. Battles, J.T. Stroud, B. Buffum, R.T.T. Forman, and J.B. Losos. 2016. Determinants of spread in an urban landscape by an introduced lizard. Landscape Ecology 31: 1795–1813.
Mahler, D.L., S.M. Lambert, A.J. Geneva, J. Ng, S.B. Hedges, J.B. Losos, and R.E. Glor. 2016. Discovery of a giant chameleon-like lizard (Anolis) on Hispaniola and its significance to understanding replicated adaptive radiations. American Naturalist 188:357-364.
Stroud, J.T., and J.B. Losos. 2016. Ecological opportunity and adaptive radiation. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 47:507-532.
Ingram, T., A. Harrison, D.L. Mahler, M.d.R. Castañeda, R.E. Glor, A. Herrel, Y.E. Stuart and J.B. Losos. 2016. Comparative tests of the role of dewlap size in Anolis lizard speciation. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 283: 20162199. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.2199.
Sherratt, E., M.d.R., Castañeda, R. Garwood, D.L. Mahler, T.J. Sanger, A. Herrel, K. de Queiroz, and J.B. Losos. 2015. Amber fossils demonstrate deep-time stability of Caribbean lizard communities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112:9961-9966.
Muñoz, M.M., M.A. Stimola, A.C. Algar, A. Conover, A. Rodriguez, M.A. Landestoy, G.S. Bakken, and J.B. Losos. 2014. Evolutionary stasis and lability in thermal physiology in a group of tropical lizards. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 281:20132433.
Sanger, T.J., S.M. Seav, M. Tokita, B. Langerhans, L.M. Ross, J.B. Losos, and A. Abzhanov. 2014. The oestrogen pathway underlies the evolution of exaggerated male cranial shapes in Anolis lizards. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 281:20140329.
Steinberg, D.S., J.B. Losos, T.W. Schoener, D.A. Spiller, J.J. Kolbe, and M. Leal. 2014. Predator-associated modulation of movement-based signals by a Bahamian lizard. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111:9187-9192.
Castañeda, M.d.R, E. Sherratt, and J.B. Losos. 2014. The Mexican amber anole, Anolis electrum, within a phylogenetic context: implications for the origins of Caribbean anoles. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 172:133-144.
Helmus, M.R., D.L. Mahler, and J.B. Losos. 2014. Island biogeography of the Anthropocene. Nature 513:543-546.
Stuart, Y.E., T.S. Campbell, P.A. Hohenlohe, R.G. Reynolds, L.J. Revell, and J.B. Losos. 2014. Rapid evolution of a native species following invasion by a congener. Science 346:463-466.
Losos, J.B., S.J. Arnold, G. Bejerano, E.D. Brodie III, D. Hibbett, H.E. Hoekstra, D.P. Mindell, A. Monteiro, C. Moritz, H.A. Orr, D.A. Petrov, S.S. Renner, R.E. Ricklefs, P.S. Soltis, and T. L. Turner. 2013. Evolutionary biology for the 21st Century. PLoS Biology e1001466:1-8.
Stuart, Y.E., and J.B. Losos. 2013. Ecological character displacement: glass half full or half empty? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 28:402-408.
Hertz, P.E., Y. Arima, A. Harrison, R.B. Huey, J.B. Losos, and R.E. Glor. 2013. Asynchronous evolution of physiology and morphology in Anolis lizards. Evolution 67:2101-2113.
Mahler, D.L., T. Ingram, L.J. Revell, and J.B. Losos. 2013. Exceptional convergence on the macroevolutionary landscape in island lizard radiations. Science 341:292-295.
Sanger, T.J., E. Sherratt, J.W. McGlothlin, E.D. Brodie III, J.B. Losos, and A. Abzhanov. 2013. Convergent evolution of sexual dimorphism in skull shape using distinct developmental strategies. Evolution 67:2180-2193.
Kolbe, J.J., M. Leal, T.W. Schoener, D.A. Spiller, and J.B. Losos. 2012. Founder effects persist despite adaptive differentiation: a field experiment with lizards. Science 335:1086-1089.
Losos, J.B., M.L. Woolley, D.L. Mahler, O. Torres-Carvajal, K.E. Crandell, E.W. Schaad, A.E. Narváez, F. Ayala-Varela, and A. Herrel. 2012. Notes on the natural history of the little-known Ecuadorian horned anole, Anolis proboscis. Breviora 531:1-17.
Lopez-Darias, M., T.W. Schoener, D.A. Spiller, and J.B. Losos. 2012. Predators determine how weather affects the spatial niche of lizard prey: exploring niche dynamics at a fine-scale. Ecology 93:2512-2518.
Wang, I., R.E. Glor, and J.B. Losos. 2013. Quantifying the roles of ecology and geography in spatial genetic divergence and reproductive isolation. Ecology Letters 16: 175-182.
Contact Information
Museum of Comparative Zoology Labs, Rm 206
26 Oxford Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
jlosos@oeb.harvard.edu
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Faculty Affiliation
Museum of Comparative Zoology
Jonathan Losos
Monique and Philip Lehner Professor for the Study of Latin America
Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Curator in Herpetology, Museum of Comparative Zoology
Jonathan Losos
Curriculum Vitae
Visit the Anole Annals Blog
Check out my stories in the New York Times, Scientist at Work
Watch the Howard Hughes Medical Institute short film, The Origin of Species: Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree
Contact Information
jlosos@oeb.harvard.edu
p: 617-495-9835
People
Principal Investigator
CURRICULUM VITAE
Jonathan B. Losos
Museum of Comparative Zoology and
Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
26 Oxford Street
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
jlosos@oeb.harvard.edu
http://www.oeb.harvard.edu/faculty/losos/jblosos/
BIRTHDATE: December 7, 1961 St. Louis, Missouri
EDUCATION:
8/84–12/89 University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D., Ecomorphological Adaptation in the Genus Anolis, Zoology)
9/80–6/84 Harvard University (A.B., Biology)
ACADEMIC POSITIONS:
1987–1989 Teaching Assistant, University of California, Berkeley
1990–1992 Post-Doctoral Fellow, Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis
1992–1997 Assistant Professor, Washington University
1997–2001 Associate Professor, Washington University
2001–2006 Professor, Washington University
2000–2003 and
2004–2005 Director, Tyson Research Center, Washington University
2003–2005 Chair, Environmental Studies Program, Washington University
2006– Monique and Philip Lehner Professor for the Study of Latin America, Harvard University
2006– Curator of Herpetology, Museum of Comparative Zoology
HONORS and AWARDS:
1991 Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize, Society for the Study of Evolution
1994–1999 Fellowship in Science and Engineering, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, $500,000
1998 David Starr Jordan Prize
1999 Forty Under Forty Award, St. Louis Business Journal
2001 Innovation Award, St. Louis Academy of Sciences
2003, 2004 Special Recognition for Excellence in Mentoring, Graduate School Senate, Washington University
2005 Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
2005 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
2009 Edward Osborne Wilson Naturalist Award, American Society of Naturalists
2012 Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal, National Academy of Sciences
2012 Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2016 Distinguished Herpetologist, The Herpetologists’ League
PLENARY ADDRESSES AND NAMED LECTURES:
2001 Walton Lecturer, Mountain Lakes Biological Station, University of Virginia
2002 Featured speaker, Ecological Integration Symposium, Texas A&M University
2002 Distinguished Speaker, Department of Zoology, Michigan State University
2003 Keynote Speaker, Society for Research on Amphibians and Reptiles of New Zealand
2003 Eminent Biologist, Pittsburgh EcoForum
2004 Helen Mangelsdorf Lecturer, University of North Carolina
2004 Chancellor’s Distinguished Lecture, Louisiana State University
2007 Juanita Greer White Distinguished Lecturer, University of Nevada-Las Vegas
2008 Plenary Speaker, 6th Symposium on the Lacertids of the Mediterranean Basin, Lesvos, Greece
2008 Plenary Speaker, 6th World Congress of Herpetology, Manaus, Brazil
2008 Plenary Speaker, 8th Latin American Congress of Herpetology, Veradero, Cuba
2008 Mayer Lecturer, Wellesley College
2009 Sewall Wright Lecturer, University of Chicago
2009 Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of Miami
2009 Roger Carpenter Lecturer, San Diego State University
2009 Plenary Lecture, 9th North American Paleontological Convention, Cincinnati, OH
2010 Marcel Gregoire Lecturer, Merrimack College
2010 Patrick Murray Visiting Lectureship in Biology, University of Sydney
2011 Richard B. Root Graduate Student Invited Lecture, Cornell University
2011 Judge, Harry W. Greene Grilled Cheese Challenge, Cornell University
2011 Joan Marsden Lecturer in Organismal Biology, McGill University
2012 Richard H. and Glenda G. Rosenblatt Lecture in Evolutionary Biology. Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
2012 Distinguished Lecturer, Department of Organismal Biology and Ecology, University of Montana
2013 Russell Marker Lecture in Evolutionary Biology, Penn State University
2013 Distinguished Speaker, W. M. Keck Center for Behavioral Biology, North Carolina State University
2013 Tracy and Ruth Storer Lectureship in the Life Sciences, University of California, Davis
2014 Eminent Ecologist Lecturer, Rutgers University
2016 G. Evelyn Hutchinson Distinguished Speaker, Yale University
GRANTS:
1985 Ecology of Arboreal Malagasy Lizards. World Wildlife Fund-U.S.
1987 Adaptation of Jamaican Anolis Lizards. Sigma Xi (National).
1987 Adaptation of Florida Anolis Lizards. American Museum of Natural History (Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Fund).
1987 Adaptation of Jamaican Anolis Lizards. Explorer's Club.
1987 Adaptation of Jamaican Anolis Lizards. Center for Latin American Studies (Tinker Foundation).
1987 Ecomorphology of Puerto Rican Anolis Lizards. University of California, Berkeley (Patent Fund).
1988 Immunological Study of Phylogeny of Anolis Lizards. Sigma Xi (National).
1988 Relationships Within the Lizard Genus Anolis: an Immunological Approach. Sigma Xi (Berkeley Chapter).
1988 Anolis Phylogeny: an Immunological Study. American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (Gaige Fund).
1989 Evolutionary Ecomorphology of West Indian Anolis Lizards. National Science Foundation (Dissertation Improvement Grant). $9000.
1989 Ecology and Behavior of Anolis lizards in the Dominican Republic. Center for Latin American Studies (Tinker Foundation). $2500.
1991–1993 Intraspecific Adaptation in Anolis Lizards. National Geographic Society. $12,889.
1994–1999 An integrative study of adaptive radiation in West Indian Anolis lizards. National Science Foundation, $300,000 (co-P.I.s: K. de Queiroz and A. Larson) plus $27,000 in REU supplements, a $14,750 supplement to initiate a collaborative research program in South Africa, and a $32,600 supplement to initiate collaborative research in Australia).
1994–1999 Ecological and evolutionary consequences of interspecific competition: an experimental analysis with Anolis lizards. National Science Foundation, $203,193 (co-P.I.: D.A. Spiller), plus $20,000 in supplemental funding to examine the effects of Hurricane Lili and $25,000 in REU supplements.
1995–1997 The relative roles of intersexual and interspecific differentiation in the adaptive radiation of Greater Antillean Anolis lizards. National Science Foundation, $8,000 (Dissertation Improvement Grant for Marguerite Butler).
1995 Symposium: Phylogenies and comparative biology stage II: Testing hypotheses derived from phylogenies with data from extant taxa. National Science Foundation, $9,000.
1996–1997 Adaptive radiation of Cuban Anolis lizards. National Geographic Society, $19,085 (co-P.I.s: Kevin de Queiroz and Lourdes Rodríguez Schettino).
1997–1999 Phylogeny, morphology and life history: Effects of dramatic size variation in monitor lizards. National Science Foundation, $10,000 (Dissertation Improvement Grant for David Pepin).
1999–2001 Phylogenetic relationships, ontogenetic color change, and antipredator adaptation in the Colubrinae (Serpentes). National Science Foundation, $10,485 (Dissertation Improvement Grant for Doug Creer).
1999–2001 Survival of the gutsiest: a study on function and quality of signals given to an incoming predator by Anolis lizards. National Science Foundation, $9,693 (Dissertation Improvement Grant for Manuel Leal).
1999–2004 Redevelopment of insular communities following a catasrophic hurricane. National Science Foundation, $350,000, plus $28,000 in REU supplements (jointly funded collaborative research grants with D.A. Spiller).
2000–2005 Comparative study of adaptive radiation in iguanian lizards. National Science Foundation, $450,000, plus $31,687 in REU and RET supplements (co-PIs: Kevin de Queiroz, Allan Larson).
2000–2002 Evolutionary ecology and molecular phylogenetics of the lizard genus Liolaemus. National Science Foundation, $10,000 (Dissertation Improvement Grant for Jim Schulte).
2000–2001 The effects of predators on lizard behavior and evolution. National Geographic Society, $20,300 (co-PI: Thomas Schoener).
2001–2002 Comparative study of adaptive radiation, working group. National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, $76,408.
2001–2006 A multidisciplinary approach to the study of the evolution of biological form and diversity. Packard Foundation, $1,000,000 (co-PIs: Jim Cheverud, Jeremy Gibson-Brown, Kerry Kornfeld, Alan Templeton).
2002–2004 Ecology and Population Structure: are Species Convergent in Habitat use also Convergent in Degree of Population Subdivision? $10,838 (Dissertation Improvement Grant for Richard Glor).
2003–2005 Testing hypotheses of morphological differentiation in the introduced lizard, Anolis sagrei. National Science Foundation, $11,172 (Dissertation Improvement Grant for Jason Kolbe).
2003–2005 Community structure in day geckos (Phelsuma): Testing for convergence. National Science Foundation, $10,800 (Dissertation Improvement Grant for Luke Harmon).
2006–2008 Did predation Drive Micro- and Macroevolutionary Diversification in Mosquitofish? National Science Foundation, $11,975 (dissertation improvement grant for Brian Langerhans).
2006–2008 The Evolution and Importance of Genetic Constraint in Anolis Cristatellus. National Science Foundation, $11,690 (dissertation improvement grant for Liam Revell).
2005–2009 Species diversity and abundance in insular systems. National Science Foundation, $680,000 (jointly funded collaborative grants; co-P.I. on this grant, M. Leal; collaborative grant P.I.s T.W. Schoener and D.A. Spiller), plus $6,000 in REU supplements.
2005–2009 Phylogenetic analysis of G-matrix evolution in the repeated adaptive radiations of Anolis lizards. National Science Foundation, $725,000 (jointly funded collaborative grant with E.D. Brodie, III), plus $12,000 in REU supplements.
2005–2008 Origins of diversity in animal communication: habitat-dependent adaptive change in lizard visual displays. National Science Foundation, $347,155 (jointly funded collaborative grant with J.A. Stamps and T. Ord), plus $6,000 in REU supplements.
2006–2009 Convergent evolution of desert lizards: phylogenomic and morphological analyses of limb Development, Australian Research Council, AUS$263,000.
2008–2010 Ecological opportunity and the rate of evolution in neotropical Anolis lizards. $11,984 (National Science Foundation, Dissertation Improvement Grant for Luke Mahler).
2009–2012 Layers of adaptive radiation in Anolis lizards: investigation of previously unexplored ecological and taxonomic diversity, $1,053,885 (jointly funded collaborative grant with R.E. Glor).
2010–2015 A field-experimental test for evolutionary trait-mediated indirect effects in food webs. National Science Foundation, $1,099,998 (jointly funded collaborative grant with T.W. Schoener, D.A. Spiller, and M. Leal).
2011–2012 Workshop on the future of evolutionary biology. National Science Foundation, $17,969.
2011–2014 The genetics of convergence at multiple levels: evolution of colorful dewlaps in Anolis. National Science Foundation, $1,053,446 (co-PI; H.E. Hoekstra, PI; jointly funded collaborative grant with C.J. Schneider), plus $7,500 in REU supplements.
2014-2017 A functional perspective on adaptive radiation: explaining differences in the adaptive radiations of mainland and island Anolis lizards. National Science Foundation, $660,952 (jointly funded collaborative grant with T. Roberts).
2015-2017 The origin of species in action: synthesizing experimental studies of evolution with genomics. John Templeton Foundation, $1,641,577.
BOOKS:
Losos, J.B. 2009. Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adaptive Radiation of Anoles. University of California Press: Berkeley, CA.
Levin, S.A., Ed., S.R. Carpenter, H.C.J. Godfray, A.P. Kinzig, M. Loreau, J.B. Losos, B. Walker, and D.S. Wilcove, Assoc. Eds. 2009. The Princeton Guide to Ecology. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
Losos, J.B., and R.E. Ricklefs, Eds. 2009. The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
Losos, J.B. Ed. 2010. In the Light of Evolution: Essays from the Laboratory and Field. Roberts and Co.: Greenwood Village, CO.
Losos, J.B., D.A. Baum, D.J. Futuyma, H.E. Hoekstra, R.E. Lenski, A.J. Moore, C.L. Peichel, D. Schluter and M.C. Whitlock. Eds. 2014. The Princeton Guide to Evolution. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
Losos, J.B., and R.E. Lenski. Eds. 2016. How Evolution Shapes Our Lives: Essays on Biology and Society. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
Losos, J.B. Forthcoming (2017). Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance and the Future of Evolution. Riverhead Press, Penguin Random House: New York, NY.
ARTICLES:
Losos, J.B. 1985. Male aggressive behavior in a pair of sympatric sibling species. Breviora 484: 1-30.
Losos, J.B. 1985. An experimental demonstration of the species-recognition role of Anolis dewlap color. Copeia 1985: 905-910.
Losos, J.B. 1986. Island biogeography of day geckos (Phelsuma)in the Indian Ocean. Oecologia 68: 338-343.
Losos, J.B. 1987. Postures of the Military Dragon (Ctenophorus isolepis) in relation to substrate temperature. Amphibia-Reptilia 8: 419-423.
Greene, H.W., and J.B. Losos. 1988. Systematics, natural history, and conservation. Bioscience 38: 458-462.
Losos, J.B. 1988. Thermoregulatory correlates of escape behavior by a desert lizard, Ctenophorus isolepis. Journal of Herpetology 22: 353-356.
Losos, J.B., and H.W. Greene. 1988. Ecological and evolutionary implications of diet in monitor lizards. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 35: 379-407.
Losos, J.B., T. Papenfuss, and J.R. Macey. 1989. Correlates of running, jumping, and parachuting performance in the butterfly lizard, Leiolepis belliani. Journal of Zoology 217: 559-568.
Losos, J.B., and B. Sinervo. 1989. The effects of morphology and perch diameter on sprint performance in Anolis lizards. Journal of Experimental Biology 145: 23-30.
Losos, J.B., S. Naeem, and R.K. Colwell. 1989. Hutchinsonian ratios and statistical power. Evolution 43: 1820-1826.
Losos, J.B. 1990. Thermal sensitivity of sprinting and clinging performance in the Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko). Asiatic Herpetological Research 3: 54-59.
Losos, J.B. 1990. Concordant evolution of locomotor behavior, display rate, and morphology in West Indian Anolis lizards. Animal Behaviour 39: 879-890.
Losos, J.B. 1990. A phylogenetic analysis of character displacement in Caribbean Anolis lizards. Evolution 44: 558-569.
Losos, J.B. 1990. Ecomorphology, performance capability, and scaling of West Indian Anolis lizards: an evolutionary analysis. Ecological Monographs 60: 369-388.
Losos, J.B. 1990. The evolution of form and function: morphology and locomotor performance ability in West Indian Anolis lizards. Evolution 44: 1189-1203.
Losos, J.B., M.R. Gannon, W.J. Pfeiffer, and R.B. Waide. 1990. Notes on the ecology and behavior of the lagarto verde, Anolis cuvieri, in Puerto Rico. Caribbean Journal of Science 26: 65-66.
Dryden, G., B. Green, D. King, and J. Losos. 1990. Water and energy turnover in a small monitor lizard, Varanus acanthurus. Australian Wildlife Research 17: 641-646.
Hess, N.E., and J.B. Losos. 1991. Interspecific aggression between Anolis cristatellus and A. gundlachi: comparisons of sympatric and allopatric populations. Journal of Herpetology 25: 256-259.
Sinervo, B., and J.B. Losos. 1991. Walking the tight rope: arboreal sprint performance among Sceloporus occidentalis lizard populations. Ecology 72: 1225-1233.
Losos, J.B., R.M. Andrews, O.J. Sexton, and A. Schuler. 1991. Behavior, ecology, and locomotor performance of the giant anole, Anolis frenatus. Caribbean Journal of Science 27: 173-179.
James, C.D., and J.B. Losos. 1991. Diet and reproductive biology of the Australian sand-swimming lizards, Eremiascincus (Scincidae). Australian Wildlife Research 18: 641-654.
Losos, J.B. 1992. A critical comparison of the taxon cycle and character displacement models for size evolution of Anolis lizards in the Lesser Antilles. Copeia 1992: 279-288.
James, C.D., J.B. Losos, and D.R. King. 1992. Reproductive biology and diets of goannas (Reptilia: Varanidae) from Australia. Journal of Herpetology 26: 128-136.
Losos, J.B. 1992. The evolution of convergent community structure in Caribbean Anolis communities. Systematic Biology 41: 403-420.
Losos, J.B., B.M. Walton, and A.F. Bennett. 1993. Trade-offs between sprinting and clinging ability in Kenyan chameleons. Functional Ecology 7: 281-286.
Losos, J.B., J.C. Marks, and T.W. Schoener. 1993. Habitat use and ecological interactions of an introduced and a native species of Anolis lizard on Grand Cayman. Oecologia 95: 525-532.
Losos, J.B. 1994. An approach to the analysis of comparative data when a phylogeny is unavailable or incomplete. Systematic Biology 43: 117-123.
Losos, J.B., and D.B. Miles. 1994. Adaptation, constraint, and the comparative method: phylogenetic issues and methods. Pp. 60-98 in P.C. Wainwright and S. Reilly, Eds., Ecological Morphology: Integrative Organismal Biology. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
Garland, T., Jr., and J.B. Losos. 1994. Ecological morphology of locomotor performance in squamate reptiles. Pp. 240-302 in P.C. Wainwright and S. Reilly, Eds., Ecological Morphology: Integrative Organismal Biology. University of Chicago Press: Chicago.
Losos, J.B. 1994. Historical contingency and lizard community ecology. Pp. 319-333 in L.J. Vitt and E.R. Pianka, Eds., Lizard Ecology: Historical and Experimental Perspectives. Princeton Univ. Press: Princeton.
Macedonia, J.M., C.S. Evans, and J.B. Losos. 1994. Male Anolis lizards discriminate video-recorded conspecific and heterospecific displays. Animal Behaviour 47: 1220-1223.
Losos, J.B. 1994. Integrative approaches to evolutionary ecology: Anolis lizards as model systems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 25: 467-493.
Losos, J.B., D.J. Irschick, and T.W. Schoener. 1994. Adaptation and constraint in the evolution of specialization of Bahamian Anolis lizards. Evolution 48: 1786-1798.
Losos, J.B., and F.R. Adler. 1995. Stumped by trees? A generalized null model for patterns of organismal diversity. American Naturalist 145: 329-342.
Losos, J.B. 1995. Community evolution in Greater Antillean Anolis lizards: Phylogenetic patterns and experimental tests. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B 349:69-75. Reprinted in P.H. Harvey, A.J.L. Brown, J.M. Smith, and S. Nee, Eds. 1996. New Uses for New Phylogenies, pp. 308-321, Oxford Univ. Press: Oxford.
Losos, J.B., and D.J. Irschick. 1996. The effect of perch diameter on escape behaviour of Anolis lizards: Laboratory-based predictions and field tests. Animal Behaviour 51: 593-602.
Irschick, D.J., and J.B. Losos. 1996. Morphology, ecology, and behavior of the twig anole, Anolis angusticeps. Pp. 291-301 in R. Powell and R.W. Henderson, Eds., Contributions to West Indian Herpetology: A Tribute to Albert Schwartz. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, Ithaca, NY.
Losos, J.B. 1996. Dynamics of range expansion by three introduced species of Anolis lizards on Bermuda. Journal of Herpetology 30: 204-210.
Losos, J.B. 1996. Phylogenetic perspectives on community ecology. Ecology 77: 1344-1354.
Losos, J.B. 1996. Ecological and evolutionary determinants of the species-area relation in Caribbean anoline lizards. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B 351:847-854. Reprinted in P.R. Grant. 1998. Evolution on Islands, pp. 210-224, Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Losos, J.B. 1996. Phylogenies and comparative biology, Stage II: Testing causal hypotheses derived from phylogenies with data from extant taxa. Systematic Biology 45: 259-260.
Larson, A., and J.B. Losos. 1996. Phylogenetic systematics of adaptation. In M.R. Rose G.V. Lauder, Eds., Adaptation. Pp. 187-220. Academic Press: San Diego.
Irschick, D.J., C.C. Austin, K. Petren, R.N. Fisher, J.B. Losos, and O. Ellers. 1996. A comparative analysis of clinging ability among pad-bearing lizards. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 59: 21-35.
Stamps, J.A., J.B. Losos, and R.M. Andrews. 1997. A comparative study of population density and sexual size dimorphism in lizards. American Naturalist 149: 64-90.
Losos, J.B., K.I. Warheit, and T.W. Schoener. 1997. Adaptive differentiation following experimental island colonization in Anolis lizards. Nature 387: 70-73.
Glossip, D., and J.B. Losos. 1997. Ecological correlates of number of subdigital lamellae in anoles. Herpetologica 53: 192-199.
Jackman, T., J.B. Losos, A. Larson and K. de Queiroz. 1997. Phylogenetic studies of convergent adaptive radiations in Caribbean Anolis lizards. Pp. 535-557 in T. Givnish and K. Systma, Eds., Molecular Evolution and Adaptive Radiation. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
Autumn, K., and J.B. Losos. 1997. Notes on jumping ability and thermal biology of the enigmatic anole Chamaelinorops barbouri. Journal of Herpetology 31: 442-444.
Losos, J.B., and K. de Queiroz. 1997. Evolutionary consequences of ecological release in Caribbean Anolis lizards. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 61: 459-483.
Irschick, D.J., L.J. Vitt, P.A. Zani, and J.B. Losos. 1997. A comparison of evolutionary radiations in mainland and West Indian Anolis lizards. Ecology 78: 2191-2203.
Butler, M.A., and J.B. Losos. 1997. Testing for unequal amounts of evolution in a continuous character on different branches of a phylogenetic tree using linear and squared-change parsimony: an example using Lesser Antillean Anolis lizards. Evolution 51: 1623-1635.
Irschick, D.J., and J.B. Losos. 1998. A comparative analysis of the ecological significance of maximal locomotor performance in Caribbean Anolis lizards. Evolution 52: 219-226.
Losos, J.B., T.R. Jackman, A. Larson, K. de Queiroz, and L. Rodríguez-Schettino. 1998. Historical contingency and determinism in replicated adaptive radiations of island lizards. Science 279: 2115-2118.
Losos, J.B., and L.-R. Chu. 1998. Examination of factors affecting dewlap size in Caribbean anoles. Copeia 1998: 430-438.
Spiller, D.A., J.B. Losos, and T.W. Schoener. 1998. Impact of a catastrophic hurricane on island populations. Science 281: 695-697.
Leal, M., J.A. Rodríguez-Robles, and J.B. Losos. 1998. An experimental study of interspecific interactions between two Puerto Rican Anolis lizards. Oecologia 117: 273-278.
de Queiroz, K., L.-R. Chu, and J.B. Losos. 1998. A second Anolis lizard in Dominican amber and the systematics and ecological morphology of Dominican amber anoles. American Museum of Natural History Novitates 3249: 1-23.
Losos, J.B., and D. Spiller. 1999. Differential colonization success and asymmetrical interactions between two lizard species. Ecology 80: 252-258.
Jackman, T.R., A. Larson, K. de Queiroz, and J.B. Losos. 1999. Phylogenetic relationships and the tempo of early diversification in Anolis lizards. Systematic Biology 48: 254-285.
Beuttell, K., and J.B. Losos. 1999. Ecological morphology of Caribbean anoles. Herpetological Monographs 13: 1-28.
Irschick, D.J., and J.B. Losos. 1999. Do lizards avoid habitats in which performance is submaximal?: The relationship between sprinting capabilities and structural habitat use in Caribbean anoles. American Naturalist 154:293-305.
Warheit, K.I., J.D. Forman, J.B. Losos, and D.B. Miles. 1999. Morphological diversification and adaptive radiation: a comparison of two diverse lizard clades. Evolution 53:1226-1234.
Losos, J.B. 1999. Uncertainty in the reconstruction of ancestral character states and limitations on the use of phylogenetic comparative methods. Animal Behaviour 58: 1319-1324.
Losos, J.B., D.A. Creer, D. Glossip, R. Goellner, A. Hampton, G. Roberts, N. Haskell, P. Taylor, and J. Etling. 2000. Evolutionary implications of phenotypic plasticity in the hindlimb of the lizard Anolis sagrei. Evolution 54:301-305.
Butler, M.A., T.W. Schoener, and J.B. Losos. 2000. The relationship between sexual size dimorphism and habitat use in Greater Antillean Anolis lizards. Evolution 54: 259-272.
Leal, M., and J.B. Losos. 2000. Natural history of the Cuban lizard Chamaeleolis barbatus. Journal of Herpetology 34:318-322.
Losos, J.B., and D. Schluter. 2000. Analysis of an evolutionary species-area relationship. Nature 408:847-850.
Schneider, C.J., J.B. Losos, and K. de Queiroz. 2001. Evolutionary relationships of Anolis bimaculatus group from the northern Lesser Antilles. Journal of Herpetology 35:1-12.
Schoener, T.W., D.A. Spiller, and J.B. Losos. 2001. Predators increase the risk of catastrophic extinction of prey populations. Nature 412:183-186.
Creer, D.A., K. de Queiroz, T.R. Jackman, J.B. Losos, and A. Larson. 2001. Systematics of the Anolis roquet series of the southern Lesser Antilles. Journal of Herpetology 35: 428-441.
Schoener, T.W., D.A. Spiller, and J.B. Losos. 2001. Natural restoration of the species-area relation for a lizard after a hurricane. Science 294:1525-1528.
Knox, A.K., J.B. Losos, and C.J. Schneider. 2001. Adaptive radiation versus intraspecific differentiation: morphological variation in Caribbean Anolis lizards. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 14:904-909.
Losos, J.B., T.W. Schoener, K.I. Warheit, and D.A. Creer. 2001. Experimental studies of adaptive differentiation in Bahamian Anolis lizards. Genetica 112-113:399-415. (Reprinted in A.P. Hendry and M.T. Kinnison, Eds., Microevolution: Rate, Pattern, and Process, pp. 399-415. Kluwer Academic Publishers: Dordrecht.
Angert, A.L., D. Hutchison, D. Glossip, and J.B. Losos. 2002. Microhabitat use and thermal biology of the collared lizard (Crotaphytus collaris collaris) and the fence lizard (Sceloporus undulatus hyacinthinus) in Missouri glades. Journal of Herpetology 36:23-29.
Jackman, T.R., D.J. Irschick, K. de Queiroz, J.B. Losos, and A. Larson. 2002. Molecular phylogenetic perspective on evolution of lizards of the Anolis grahami Series. Journal of Experimental Zoology: Molecular and Developmental Evolution 294:1-16.
Leal, M., A. K. Knox, and J. B. Losos. 2002. Lack of convergence in aquatic Anolis lizards. Evolution 56:785-791.
Bickel, R., and J. B. Losos. 2002. Patterns of morphological variation and correlates of habitat use in chameleons. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 76: 91-103.
Losos, J. B., and D. B. Miles. 2002. Testing the hypothesis that a clade has adaptively radiated: iguanid lizard clades as a case study. American Naturalist 160: 147-157.
Schoener, T.W., D.A. Spiller, and J.B. Losos. 2002. Predation on a common Anolis lizard: Can the food-web effects of a devastating predator be reversed? Ecological Monographs 72: 383-408.
Losos, J.B., D.A. Creer, and J. Schulte, II. 2002. Cautionary comments on the measurement of maximum locomotor capabilities. Journal of Zoology 258: 57-61.
Losos, J.B., P.L.N. Mouton, R. Bickel, I. Cornelius, and L. Ruddock. 2002. The effect of body armature on escape behaviour in cordylid lizards. Animal Behaviour 64: 313-321.
Butler, M.A., and J.B. Losos. 2002. Multivariate sexual dimorphism, sexual selection, and adaptation in Greater Antillean Anolis lizards. Ecological Monographs 72:541-559.
Macrini, T. E., D. J. Irschick, and J. B. Losos. 2003. Ecomorphological differences in toepad characteristics between mainland and island anoles. Journal of Herpetology 37:52-58.
Losos, J.B., M. Butler, and T.W. Schoener. 2003. Sexual dimorphism in body size and shape in relation to habitat use among species of Caribbean Anolis lizards. Pp. 356-380 in S. F. Fox, J. K. McCoy and T. A. Baird, Eds., Lizard Social Behavior. Johns Hopkins Press: Baltimore.
Losos, J. B., and R. E. Glor. 2003. Phylogenetic comparative methods and the geography of speciation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 18:220-227.
Losos, J. B., M. Leal, R. E. Glor, K. de Queiroz, P. E. Hertz, L. Rodríguez Schettino, A. Chamizo Lara, T. R. Jackman, and A. Larson. 2003. Niche lability in the evolution of a Caribbean lizard community. Nature 424:542-545.
Harmon, L. J., J. A. Schulte II, A. Larson and J. B. Losos. 2003. Tempo and mode of evolutionary radiation in iguanian lizards. Science 301: 961-964.
Losos, J. B., T. W. Schoener, and D. A. Spiller. 2003. Effect of immersion in seawater on egg survival in the lizard Anolis sagrei. Oecologia 137:360-362.
Glor, R. E., J. J. Kolbe, R. Powell, A. Larson and J. B. Losos. 2003. Phylogenetic analysis of ecological and morphological diversification in Hispaniolan trunk-ground anoles (Anolis cybotes group). Evolution 57:2383-2397.
Schoener, T.W., D.A. Spiller, and J.B. Losos. 2004. Variable ecological effects of hurricanes: the importance of timing for survival of lizards on Bahamian islands. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States 101: 177-181.
Schulte, J.A., II, J.B. Losos, F.B. Cruz, and H. Núñez. 2004. The relationship between morphology, escape behaviour and microhabitat occupation in the lizard clade Liolaemus (Iguanidae: Tropidurinae*: Liolaemini). Journal of Evolutionary Biology 17: 408-420.
Kolbe, J.J., R.E. Glor, L. Rodríguez Schettino, A. Chamizo Lara, A. Larson, and J. B. Losos. 2004. Genetic variation increases during biological invasion by a Cuban lizard. Nature 431:177-181.
Losos, J.B. 2004. Adaptation and speciation in Greater Antillean anoles. Pp. 335-343 in U. Dieckmann, M. Doebeli, J.A.J. Metz, and D. Tautz, eds. Adaptive Speciation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Losos, J.B., and R.S. Thorpe. 2004. Evolutionary diversification of Caribbean Anolis lizards: Introduction. Pp. 343-344 in U. Dieckmann, M. Doebeli, J.A.J. Metz, and D. Tautz, eds. Adaptive Speciation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Thorpe, R.S., and J.B. Losos. 2004. Evolutionary diversification of Caribbean Anolis lizards: Concluding comments. Pp. 322-324 in U. Dieckmann, M. Doebeli, J.A.J. Metz, and D. Tautz, eds. Adaptive Speciation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.
Losos, J.B., T.W. Schoener, and D.A. Spiller. 2004. Predator-induced behaviour shifts and natural selection in field-experimental lizard populations. Nature 432:505-508.
Glor, R.E., M.E. Gifford, A. Larson, J.B. Losos, L. Rodríguez Schettino, A.R. Chamizo Lara, and T.R. Jackman. 2004. Partial island submergence and speciation in an adaptive radiation: a multilocus analysis of the Cuban green anoles. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 271:2257-2265.
Harmon, L.J., J.J. Kolbe, J.M. Cheverud, and J.B. Losos. 2005. Convergence and the multidimensional niche. Evolution 59:409-421.
Van Zandt, P.A., E. Collins, J.B. Losos, and J.M. Chase. 2005. Implications of food web interactions for restoration of Missouri Ozark glade habitats. Restoration Ecology 13:312-317.
Glor, R.E., J.B. Losos, and A. Larson. 2005. Out of Cuba: overwater dispersal and speciation among lizards in the Anolis carolinensis subgroup. Molecular Ecology 14:2419-2432.
Nicholson, K.E., R.E. Glor, J. J. Kolbe, A. Larson, S.B. Hedges, and J.B. Losos. 2005. Mainland colonization by island lizards. Journal of Biogeography 32:929-938.
Harmon, L.J., K. Bauman, M. McCloud, J. Parks, S. Howell, and J.B. Losos. 2005. What the free-ranging animals do at the zoo: a study of the behavior and habitat use of opossums (Didelphis virginiana) on the grounds of the St. Louis Zoo. Zoo Biology 24:197-213.
Rodríguez-Robles, J.A., M. Leal, and J.B. Losos. 2005. Habitat selection by the Puerto Rican yellow-chinned anole, Anolis gundlachi. Can. J. Zool. 83:983-988.
Losos, J. B., and D. A. Spiller. 2005. Natural History Notes. Anolis smaragdinus (Bahamian green anole). Dispersal. Herpetological Review 36:315-316.
Schoener, T.W., J.B. Losos, and D.A. Spiller. 2005. Island biogeography of populations: an introduced species transforms survival patterns. Science 310:1807-1809.
Kolbe, J.J., and J.B. Losos. 2005. Hind-limb length plasticity in Anolis carolinensis. Journal of Herpetology 39:674-678.
Harmon, L.J., and J.B. Losos. 2005. The effect of intraspecfic sample size on Type I and Type II error rates in comparative studies. Evolution 59:2705-2710.
Melville, J., L.J. Harmon, and J.B. Losos. 2006. Intercontinental community convergence of ecology and morphology in desert lizards. Proc. Royal Soc. Lond. B. 273:557-563.
Langerhans, R.B., J.H. Knouft, and J.B. Losos. 2006. Shared and unique features of diversification in Greater Antillean Anolis ecomorphs. Evolution 60:362-369.
Losos, J.B., R.E. Glor, J.J. Kolbe, and K. Nicholson. 2006. Adaptation, speciation, and convergence: a hierarchical analysis of adaptive radiation in Caribbean Anolis lizards. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 93:24-33.
Webb, C.O., J.B. Losos, and A.A. Agrawal. 2006. Integrating phylogenies into community ecology. Ecology 87: S1-S2.
Knouft, J.H., J.B. Losos, R.E. Glor, and J.J. Kolbe. 2006. Phylogenetic analysis of the evolution of the niche in lizards of the Anolis sagrei group. Ecology 87:S29-S38.
Johnson, M.A., R. Kirby, S. Wang, and J.B. Losos. 2006. What drives variation in habitat use by Anolis lizards: habitat availability or selectivity? Canadian Journal of Zoology 84:877-886.
Losos, J.B., T.W. Schoener, R.B. Langerhans, and D.A. Spiller. 2006. Rapid temporal reversal in predator-driven natural selection. Science 314:1111.
Nicholson, K.E., L.J. Harmon, and J.B. Losos. 2007. Evolution of Anolis lizard dewlap diversity. PLoS One 2(3): e274. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000274.
Kolbe, J.J., A. Larson, and J.B. Losos. 2007. Differential admixture shapes morphological variation among invasive populations of the lizard, Anolis sagrei. Molecular Ecology 16:1579-1591.
Butler, M.A., S.A. Sawyer, and J.B. Losos. 2007. Sexual dimorphism and adaptive radiation in Anolis lizards. Nature 447:202-205.
Miles, D.B., J.B. Losos, and D.J. Irschick. 2007. Morphology, performance, and foraging mode. Pp. 49-93 in S.M. Reilly, L.B. McBrayer, and D.B. Miles, Eds., Lizard Ecology: the Evolutionary Consequences of Foraging Mode. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.
Losos, J.B. 2007. Detective work in the West Indies: Integrating historical and experimental approaches to study island lizard evolution. Bioscience 57:585-597.
Ricklefs, R.E., J.B. Losos, and T.M. Townsend. 2007. Evolutionary diversification of clades of squamate reptiles. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 20:1751-1762.
Revell, L.J., M.A. Johnson, J.A. Schulte, II, J.J. Kolbe, and J.B. Losos. 2007. A phylogenetic test for adaptive convergence in rock-dwelling lizards. Evolution 61:2898-2912.
Kolbe, J.J., R.E. Glor, L. Rodríguez Schettino, A. Chamizo Lara, A. Larson, and J.B. Losos. 2007. Multiple sources, admixture, and genetic variation in introduced Anolis lizard populations. Conservation Biology 21:1612-1625.
Hedtke, S.M., K.R. Zamudio, C.A. Phillips, J. Losos, and P. Brylski. 2007. Conservation genetics of the endangered Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard (Uma inornata). Herpetologica 63:411-420.
Sanger, T.J., J.B. Losos, and J.J. Gibson-Brown. 2008. A developmental staging series for the lizard genus Anolis: a new system for the integration of evolution, development, and ecology. Journal of Morphology 269:129-137.
Johnson, M.A., M. Leal, L. Rodríguez Schettino, A. Chamizo Lara, L.J. Revell, and J.B. Losos. 2008. A phylogenetic perspective on foraging mode evolution and habitat use in West Indian Anolis lizards. Animal Behaviour 75:555-563.
Sanger, T.J., P.M. Hime, M.A. Johnson, J. Diani, and J.B. Losos. 2008. Laboratory protocols for husbandry and embryo collection of Anolis lizards. Herpetological Review 39:58-63.
Kolbe, J.J., A. Larson, J.B. Losos, and K. de Queiroz. 2008. Admixture determines genetic diversity and population differentiation in the biological invasion of a lizard. Biology Letters 4:434-437.
Losos, J.B. 2008. Phylogenetic niche conservatism, phylogenetic signal and the relationship between phylogenetic relatedness and ecological similarity among species. Ecology Letters 11: 995-1007.
Losos, J.B. 2008. Rejoinder to Wiens (2008): Phylogenetic niche conservatism, its occurrence and importance. Ecology Letters 11: 1005-1007.
Harmon, L.J., J. Melville, A. Larson, and J.B. Losos. 2008. The Role of Geography and Ecological Opportunity in the Diversification of Day Geckos (Phelsuma). Systematic Biology 57:562-573.
Pinto, G., D.L. Mahler, L.J. Harmon, and J.B. Losos. 2008. Testing the island effect in adaptive radiation: rates and patterns of morphological diversification in Caribbean and mainland Anolis lizards. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 275:2749-2757.
Gavrilets, S., and J.B. Losos. 2009. Adaptive radiation: contrasting theory with data. Science 323:732-737.
Losos, J.B., and R.E. Ricklefs. 2009. Adaptation and diversification on islands. Nature 457:830-836.
Losos, J.B., and C.J. Schneider. 2009. Anolis lizards. Current Biology 19: R316-R318.
Losos, J.B., and C.E. Parent. 2009. The speciation-area relationship. Pp. 415-438 in J.B. Losos and R.E. Ricklefs, Eds., The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Hagey, T.J., J.B. Losos, and L.J. Harmon. 2010. Cruise foraging of invasive chameleon (Chamaeleo jacksonii xantholophus) in Hawai’i. Breviora 519:1-7.
Collar, D.C., J.A. Schulte II, B.C. O’Meara, and J.B. Losos. 2010. Habitat use affects morphological diversification in dragon lizards. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 23:1033-1049.
Johnson, M.A., L.J. Revell, and J.B. Losos. 2010. Behavioral convergence and adaptive radiation: effects of habitat use on territorial behavior in Anolis lizards. Evolution 64:1151-1159.
Losos, J.B. 2010. Adaptive radiation, ecological opportunity, and evolutionary determinism. American Naturalist 175: 623-639.
Losos, J.B., and D.L. Mahler. 2010. Adaptive Radiation: The Interaction of Ecological Opportunity, Adaptation, and Speciation. Pp. 381-420 in M.A. Bell, D.J. Futuyma, W.F. Eanes, and J.S. Levinton, Eds., Evolution Since Darwin: The First 150 Years. Sinauer Assoc.: Sunderland, MA.
Harmon, L.J., J.B. Losos, T.J. Davies, R.G. Gillespie, J.L. Gittleman, W.B. Jennings, K.H. Kozak, M.A. McPeek, F. Moreno-Roarck, T.J. Near, A. Purvis, R.E. Ricklefs, D. Schluter, J.A. Schulte II, O. Seehausen, B.L. Sidlauskas, O. Torres-Carvajal, J.T. Weir, and A.Ø. Mooers. 2010. Early bursts of body size and shape evolution are rare in comparative data. Evolution 64: 2385-2396.
Mahler, D.L., L.J. Revell, R.E. Glor, and J.B. Losos. 2010. Ecological opportunity and the rate of morphological evolution in the diversification of Greater Antillean anoles. Evolution 64:2731-2745.
Rodríguez Schettino, L., J.B. Losos, P.E. Hertz, K. de Queiroz, A.R. Chamizo, M. Leal, and V. Rivalta González. 2010. The anoles of Soroa: aspects of their ecological relationships. Breviora 520: 1-22.
Losos, J.B. 2010. A Tale of two radiations: similarities and differences in the evolutionary diversification of Darwin’s finches and Greater Antillean Anolis lizards. Pp. 309-331 in P.R. Grant and B.R. Grant, Eds., In search of the Causes of Evolution: From Field Observations to Mechanisms. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
Willis, C.G., B. Ruhfel, R.B. Primack, A.J. Miller-Rushing, J.B. Losos, and C.C. Davis. 2010. Favorable climate change response explains non-native species' success in Thoreau's woods. PLoS ONE 5: e8878.
Ord, T.J., J.A. Stamps, and J.B. Losos. 2010. Adaptation and plasticity of animal communication in fluctuating environments. Evolution 64:3134-3148.
Herrel, A., M.D. Cottam, K. Godbeer, T. Sanger, and J.B. Losos. 2011. An ecomorphological analysis of native and introduced populations of the endemic lizard Anolis maynardi of the Cayman Islands. Breviora 522:1-10.
Losos, J.B. 2011. Seeing the forest for the trees: the limitations of phylogenies in comparative biology. American Naturalist 177:709-727.
Algar, A.C., and J.B. Losos. 2011. Evolutionary assembly of island faunas reverses the classic island-mainland richness difference in Anolis lizards. Journal of Biogeography 38:1125-1137.
Losos, J.B. 2011. Convergence, adaptation, and constraint. Evolution 65:1827-1840.
Losos, J.B. and R.M. Pringle. 2011. Competition, predation and natural selection in island lizards. Nature 475:E1-2 (Brief Communication Arising in response to Calsbeek and Cox. Nature 465:613-616. 2011).
Collar, D.C., J.A. Schulte II, and J.B. Losos. 2011. Evolution of extreme body size disparity in monitor lizards (Varanus). Evolution 65:2641-2663.
Alföldi, J., F. Di Palma, M. Grabherr, C. Williams, L. Kong, E. Mauceli, P. Russell, C.B. Lowe, R.E. Glor, J.D. Jaffe, D.A. Ray, S. Boissinot, A.M. Shedlock, C. Botka, T.A. Castoe, J.K. Colbourne, M.K. Fujita, R. Godinez Moreno, B.F. ten Hallers, D. Haussler, A. Heger, D. Heiman, D.E. janes, J. Johnson, P.J. de Jong, M.Y. Koriabine, M. Lara, P.A. Novick, C.L. Organ, S.E. Peach, S. Poe, D.D. Pollock, K. de Queiroz, T. Sanger, S. Searle, J.D. Smith, Z. Smith, R. Swofford, J. Turner-Maier, J. Wade, S. Young, A. Zadissa, S.V. Edwards, T.C. Glenn, C.J. Schneider, J.B. Losos, E.S. Lander, M. Breen, C.P. Ponting, and K. Lindblad-Toh. 2011. The genome of the green anole lizard and a comparative analysis with birds and mammals. Nature 477: 587-591.
Boistel, R., A. Herrel, R. Lebrun, G. Daghfous, P. Tafforeau, J.B. Losos and B. Vanhooydonck. 2011. Shake rattle and roll: the bony labyrinth and aerial descent in squamates. Integ. Comp. Biol. 51:957-968.
Kolbe, J.J., L.J. Revell, B. Szekely, E.D. Brodie III, and J.B. Losos. 2011. Convergent evolution of phenotypic integration and its alignment with morphological diversification in Caribbean Anolis ecomorphs. Evolution 65:3608-3624.
Kusumi, K., R. J. Kulathinal, A. Abzhanov, S. Boissinot, N. G. Crawford, B. C. Faircloth, T. C. Glenn, D. E. Janes, J. B. Losos, D. B. Menke, S. Poe, T. J. Sanger, C. J. Schneider, J. Stapley, J. Wade, and J. Wilson-Rawls. 2011. Developing a community-based genetic nomenclature for anole lizards. BMC Genomics 12:554.
Sanger, T.J., L.J. Revell, J.J. Gibson-Brown, and J.B. Losos. 2012. Repeated modification of early limb morphogenesis programmes underlies the convergence of relative limb length in Anolis lizards. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 279:739-748.
Eckalbar, W.L., E. Lasku, C.R. Infante, R.M. Elsey, G.J. Markov, A.N. Allen, J.J. Corneveaux, J.B. Losos, D.F. DeNardo, M.J. Huentelman, J. Wilson-Rawls, A. Rawls, and K. Kusumi. 2012. Somitogenesis in the anole lizard and alligator reveals evolutionary convergence and divergence in the amniote segmentation clock. Developmental Biology 363:308-319.
Kolbe, J.J., M. Leal, T.W. Schoener, D.A. Spiller, and J.B. Losos. 2012. Founder effects persist despite adaptive differentiation: a field experiment with lizards. Science 335:1086-1089.
Losos, J.B., M.L. Woolley, D.L. Mahler, O. Torres-Carvajal, K.E. Crandell, E.W. Schaad, A.E. Narváez, F. Ayala-Varela, and A. Herrel. 2012. Notes on the natural history of the little-known Ecuadorian horned anole, Anolis proboscis. Breviora 531:1-17.
Sanger, T.J., D.L. Mahler, A. Abzhanov, and J.B. Losos. 2012. Roles for modularity and constraint in the evolution of cranial diversity among Anolis lizards. Evolution 66:1525-1542.
Kolbe, J.J., P. Vanmiddlesworth, N. Losin, N. Dappen, and J.B. Losos. 2012. Climatic niche shift predicts thermal trait response in one but not both introductions of the Puerto Rican lizard Anolis cristatellus to Miami, Florida, USA. Ecology and Evolution 2:1503-1516.
Stuart, Y.E., J.B. Losos, and A.C. Algar. 2012. The island-mainland species turnover relationship. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 279:4071-4077.
Reaney, L.T., S. Yee, J.B. Losos, and M.J. Whiting. 2012. Ecology of the flap-necked chameleon Chamaeleo dilepis in southern Africa. Breviora 532:1-18.
Campbell-Staton, S.C., R.M. Goodman, N. Backström, S.V. Edwards, J.B. Losos, and J.J. Kolbe. 2012. Out of Florida: mtDNA reveals patterns of migration and Pleistocene range expansion of the green anole lizard (Anolis carolinensis). Ecology and Evolution 2:2274-2284.
Lopez-Darias, M., T.W. Schoener, D.A. Spiller, and J.B. Losos. 2012. Predators determine how weather affects the spatial niche of lizard prey: exploring niche dynamics at a fine-scale. Ecology 93:2512-2518.
Wang, I., R.E. Glor, and J.B. Losos. 2013. Quantifying the roles of ecology and geography in spatial genetic divergence and reproductive isolation. Ecology Letters 16: 175-182.
Losos, J.B., S.J. Arnold, G. Bejerano, E.D. Brodie III, D. Hibbett, H.E. Hoekstra, D.P. Mindell, A. Monteiro, C. Moritz, H.A. Orr, D.A. Petrov, S.S. Renner, R.E. Ricklefs, P.S. Soltis, and T. L. Turner. 2013. Evolutionary biology for the 21st Century. PLoS Biology e1001466:1-8.
Algar, A.C., D.L. Mahler, R.E. Glor, and J.B. Losos. 2013. Niche incumbency, dispersal limitation and climate shape geographical distributions in a species-rich island adaptive radiation. Global Ecology and Biogeography 22:391-402.
Stuart, Y.E., and J.B. Losos. 2013. Ecological character displacement: glass half full or half empty? Trends in Ecology and Evolution 28:402-408.
Hertz, P.E., Y. Arima, A. Harrison, R.B. Huey, J.B. Losos, and R.E. Glor. 2013. Asynchronous evolution of physiology and morphology in Anolis lizards. Evolution 67:2101-2113.
Mahler, D.L., T. Ingram, L.J. Revell, and J.B. Losos. 2013. Exceptional convergence on the macroevolutionary landscape in island lizard radiations. Science 341:292-295.
Sanger, T.J., E. Sherratt, J.W. McGlothlin, E.D. Brodie III, J.B. Losos, and A. Abzhanov. 2013. Convergent evolution of sexual dimorphism in skull shape using distinct developmental strategies. Evolution 67:2180-2193.
Gartner, G.E.A., T. Gamble, A.L. Jaffe, A. Harrison, and J.B. Losos. 2013. Left-right dewlap asymmetry and phylogeography of Anolis lineatus on Aruba and Curaçao. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 110:409-426.
Wollenberg, K.C., I.J. Wang, RE. Glor, and J.B. Losos. 2013. Determinism in the diversification of Hispaniolan trunk-ground anoles (Anolis cybotes species complex). Evolution 67:3175-3190.
Muñoz, M.M., M.A. Stimola, A.C. Algar, A. Conover, A. Rodriguez, M.A. Landestoy, G.S. Bakken, and J.B. Losos. 2014. Evolutionary stasis and lability in thermal physiology in a group of tropical lizards. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 281:20132433.
Sanger, T.J., S.M. Seav, M. Tokita, B. Langerhans, L.M. Ross, J.B. Losos, and A. Abzhanov. 2014. The oestrogen pathway underlies the evolution of exaggerated male cranial shapes in Anolis lizards. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 281:20140329.
Steinberg, D.S., J.B. Losos, T.W. Schoener, D.A. Spiller, J.J. Kolbe, and M. Leal. 2014. Predator-associated modulation of movement-based signals by a Bahamian lizard. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111:9187-9192.
Castañeda, M.d.R, E. Sherratt, and J.B. Losos. 2014. The Mexican amber anole, Anolis electrum, within a phylogenetic context: implications for the origins of Caribbean anoles. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 172:133-144.
Wegener, J.E., G.E.A. Gartner, and J.B. Losos. 2014. Lizard scales in an adaptive radiation: variation in scale number follows climatic and structural habitat diversity in Anolis lizards. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 113:570-579.
Helmus, M.R., D.L. Mahler, and J.B. Losos. 2014. Island biogeography of the Anthropocene. Nature 513:543-546.
Stuart, Y.E., T.S. Campbell, P.A. Hohenlohe, R.G. Reynolds, L.J. Revell, and J.B. Losos. 2014. Rapid evolution of a native species following invasion by a congener. Science 346:463-466.
Crandell, K.E., A. Herrel, M. Sasa, J.B. Losos, and K. Autumn. 2014. Stick or grip? Co-evolution of adhesive toepads and claws in Anolis lizards. Zoology 117:363-369.
Klaczko, J., T. Ingram, and J.B. Losos. 2014. Genitals evolve faster than other traits in Anolis lizards. Journal of Zoology 295:44-48.
Harrison, A.S., L.J. Revell, and J.B. Losos. 2015. Correlated evolution of microhabitat, morphology, and behavior in West Indian Anolis lizards: A test of the habitat matrix model. Behaviour 152:1187–1207.
Sherratt, E., M.d.R., Castañeda, R. Garwood, D.L. Mahler, T.J. Sanger, A. Herrel, K. de Queiroz, and J.B. Losos. 2015. Amber fossils demonstrate deep-time stability of Caribbean lizard communities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112:9961-9966.
Scarpetta, S., L. Gray, A. Nieto-Montes de Oca, M.d.R. Castañeda, A. Herrel, J.B. Losos, R. Luna-Reyes, N. Jiménez Lang, and S. Poe. 2015. Morphology and ecology of the Mexican cave anole Anolis alvarezdeltoroi. Mesoamerican Herpetology 2:260-268.
Muñoz, M.M., K.E. Crandell, S.C. Campbell-Staton, K. Fenstermacher, H.K. Frank, P. VanMiddlesworth, M. Sasa, J.B. Losos and A. Herrel. 2015. Multiple paths to aquatic specialisation in four species of Central American Anolis lizards. Journal of Natural History. 49: 1717-1730.
Jaffe, A.L., S.C. Campbell-Staton and J.B. Losos. 2016. Geographical variation in morphology and its environmental correlates in a widespread North American lizard, Anolis carolinensis (Squamata: Dactyloidae). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 117: 760-774.
Wittorski, A., J.B. Losos, and A. Herrel. 2016. Proximate determinants of bite force in Anolis lizards. Journal of Anatomy 228: 85-95.
Kolbe, J.J., P. VanMiddlesworth, A.C. Battles, J.T. Stroud, B. Buffum, R.T.T. Forman, and J.B. Losos. 2016. Determinants of spread in an urban landscape by an introduced lizard. Landscape Ecology 31: 1795–1813.
Mahler, D.L., S.M. Lambert, A.J. Geneva, J. Ng, S.B. Hedges, J.B. Losos, and R.E. Glor. 2016. Discovery of a giant chameleon-like lizard (Anolis) on Hispaniola and its significance to understanding replicated adaptive radiations. American Naturalist 188:357-364.
Helmus, M.R., J.E. Behm, W.A.M. Jesse, J.J. Kolbe, J. Ellers, and J.B. Losos. 2016. A comparison of the ecology and evolution of exotic and native anole lizards. Pp. 122-138 in S.C.H. Barrett, R.I. Colautti, K.M. Dlugosch and L.H. Rieseberg, Eds., Invasion Genetics: The Baker and Stebbins Legacy. John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.
Campbell-Staton, S., S.V. Edwards, and J.B. Losos. 2016. Climate-mediated adaptation after mainland colonization of an ancestrally subtropical island lizard, Anolis carolinensis. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 29:2168–2180.
Medina, I., J.B. Losos and D.L. Mahler. 2016. Evolution of dorsal pattern variation in Greater Antillean Anolis lizards. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.
Stroud, J.T., and J.B. Losos. 2016. Ecological opportunity and adaptive radiation. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 47:507-532.
Ingram, T., A. Harrison, D.L. Mahler, M.d.R. Castañeda, R.E. Glor, A. Herrel, Y.E. Stuart and J.B. Losos. 2016. Comparative tests of the role of dewlap size in Anolis lizard speciation. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 283: 20162199. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.2199.
Kamath, A., and J.B. Losos. 2017. Does ecological specialization transcend scale? Habitat partitioning among individuals and species of Anolis lizards. Evolution 71:541-549.
de Queiroz, K., and J.B. Losos. 2017. ANOLIS PULCHELLUS (Puerto Rican Grass-bush Anole) and SPHAERODACTYLUS MACROLEPIS (Big-scaled Dwarf Gecko). PREDATOR-PREY INTERACTION. Herpetological Review 48:104.
Kamath, A., and J.B. Losos. 2017. The erratic and contingent progression of research on territoriality: a case study. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 71:89.
Losos, D.N., J.B.R. Weaver, T.W. Fies, A. Herrel, A.-C., Fabre, and J.B. Losos. 2017. The curious case of the left-sided dewlap: directional asymmetry in the Curaçao anole, Anolis lineatus. Breviora 553:1-7.
Kolbe, J.J., J.E. Wegener, Y.E. Stuart, U. Milstead, K.E. Boronow, A.S. Harrison and J.B. Losos. 2017. An incipient invasion of brown anole lizards (Anolis sagrei) into their own native range in the Cayman Islands: a case of cryptic back-introduction. Biological Invasions.
Campbell-Staton, S.C., Z.A. Cheviron, N. Rochette, J. Catchen, J.B. Losos, and S.V. Edwards. 2017. Winter storms drive rapid phenotypic, regulatory, and genomic shifts in the green anole lizard. Science 357:495-498.
Schoener, T.W., J.J. Kolbe, M. Leal, J.B. Losos and D.A. Spiller. In press. A multigenerational field experiment on eco-evolutionary dynamics of the influential lizard Anolis sagrei: a progress report. Copeia.
Campbell-Staton, S., A. Bare, J.B. Losos, S. Edwards and Z. Cheviron. In revision. Physiological and regulatory underpinnings of geographic variation in reptilian cold tolerance across a latitudinal cline. Sub. to Proc. Royal Soc. Lond. B.
Dickson, B., E. Sherratt, J.B. Losos and S. Pierce. In revision. Semicircular canals in Anolis lizards: ecomorphological convergence and ecomorph affinities of fossil species. Royal Society Open Science.
Muñoz, M.M., and J.B. Losos. In press. Thermoregulatory behavior simultaneously promotes and forestalls evolution in a tropical lizard. American Naturalist.
WHITE PAPERS:
Losos, J., E. Braun, D. Brown, S. Clifton, S. Edwards, J. Gibson-Brown, T. Glenn, L. Guillette, D. Main, P. Minx, W. Modi, M. Pfrender, D. Pollock, D. Ray, A. Shedlock, and W. Warren. 2005. Proposal to sequence the first reptilian genome: the green anole lizard, Anolis carolinensis. Submitted to National Human Genome Research Institute, NIH.
NEWSLETTERS:
Losos, J.B., and G.C. Mayer, Editors. 1991. Anolis Newsletter IV. Div. Amphibians and Reptiles, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution: Washington, D.C. 144 pp.
Losos, J.B., and M. Leal. 1999. Anolis Newsletter V. Washington University, St. Louis. 125 pp.
Mahler, D.L., A. Herrel, and J.B. Losos. 2010. Anolis Newsletter VI. Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Ma. 213 pp.
REVIEWS, COMMENTARIES, LETTERS AND FOREWORDS:
Losos, J.B. 1991. The phylogenetic perspective (review of D.R. Brooks and D.A. McLennan. 1991. Phylogeny, Ecology, and Behavior). Science 252: 1002-1003.
Losos, J.B. 2000. Ecological character displacement and the study of adaptation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 97: 5693 5695.
Losos, J.B. 2001. A close-up look at adaptive radiation (review of D. Schluter. 2000. The Ecology of Adaptive Radiation). Trends in Ecology and Evolution 15:264-265.
Huey, R.B., J.B. Losos, and C. Moritz. 2010. Are lizards toast? Science 328:832-833.
Leal, M., and J.B. Losos. 2010. Communication and speciation. Nature 467:159-160.
Losos, J.B. 2012. Don’t jump to conclusions on fraud. Science 336:412-413.
Losos, J.B., D.M. Hillis, and H.W. Greene. 2012. Who speaks with a forked tongue? Science 338:1428-1429.
Mayer, G.C., J.A. Coyne, J.B. Losos, J. Foufopoulos, N. Shubin, D.J. Futuyma, B.C. Campbell, and S.V. Edwards. 2013. Museums’ role: increasing knowledge. Science 339:1148-1149.
Losos, J.B., and M. Leal. 2013. The evolution of species recognition signals. Molecular Ecology 22:3879-3881.
Losos, J.B. 2013. Foreword. Pp. 3 in A. Arteaga, L. Bustamante and J.M. Guayasamin. The Amphibians and Reptiles of Mindo: Life in the cloudforest. Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica: Quito).
Losos, J., S. P. Otto, and M. Pennell. 2014. Joseph Felsenstein. American Naturalist 183(6): iii-iv.
Losos, J.B. 2014. Book review: Tuatara: biology and conservation of a venerable survivor. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 44:170–172.
Leal, M., and J.B. Losos. 2015. A naturalist’s insight into the evolution of signal redundancy. American Naturalist 186:ii-iv.
Losos, J.B. 2016. A wild life indeed. Current Biology 26:R689–R700. (review of R. Trivers. 2016. Wild Life: Adventures of an Evolutionary Biologist).
Reznick, D.N., H.E. Hoekstra, and J.B. Losos. 2017. Honorary Lifetime Membership Award: Robert Ricklefs. American Naturalist 189(5):iii.
Losos, J.B. 2017. Q&A. Current Biology 27:R788–R789.
POPULAR ARTICLES:
Losos, J.B., and K. de Queiroz. 1997. Darwin’s lizards. Natural History 106(11):34-39.
Losos, J. B. 1999. Fossil records document macroevolutionary change of species. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sept. 11, p.31.
Losos, J.B. 2001. Evolution: A lizard’s tale. Scientific American 284(3): 64-69.
Losos, J.B. 2006. In real time. Natural History 115(2):10.
Losos, J.B. 2007. Detective work in the West Indies: Integrating historical and experimental approaches to study island lizard evolution. BioScience 57: 585-597.
Spiller, D., T. Schoener, and J. Losos. 2008. Leapin’ lizards! Abaco Life Fall/Holiday 2008: 18-22.
Losos, J. 2009. Darwin, lizards, and evolution. ReVista 8(3): 11-13.
Losos, J.B. 2011. Detective work in the West Indies: Integrating historical and experimental approaches to study the evolutionary diversification of island lizards. Pp. 73-92 in J.B. Losos, Ed., In the Light of Evolution: Essays from the Laboratory and Field. Roberts and Co.: Greenwood Village, CO. (revised version of 2007 Bioscience paper).
Losos, J.B. 2011. Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution: pattern, process, and the evidence. Pp. 91-126 in J.M. Shephard, S.M. Kosslyn, and E.M. Hammonds, Eds., The Harvard Sampler: Liberal Education for the Twenty-First Century. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.
Losos, J.B. 2014. What Darwin Got Wrong. Chronicle of Higher Education, Jan. 24, pp. B13-B15.
Losos, J.B. 2016. The routes not taken. Natural History 125(2): 32-37.
TEXTBOOKS:
Raven, P.H., G.B. Johnson, J.B. Losos, and S.S. Singer. 2004. Biology, 7th Ed. McGraw-Hill: Boston, MA.
Raven, P.H., G.B. Johnson, J.B. Losos, K.A. Mason, and S.S. Singer. 2007. Biology, 8th Ed. McGraw-Hill: Boston, MA.
Johnson, G., and J. Losos. 2008. The Living World, 5th Ed. McGraw-Hill: Boston, MA.
Johnson, G., and J. Losos. 2008. Essentials of the Living World, 2nd Ed. McGraw-Hill: Boston, MA.
Johnson, G., and J. Losos. 2010. The Living World, 6th Ed. McGraw-Hill: Boston, MA.
Raven, P., G.B. Johnson, K.A. Mason, J.B. Losos, and S.S. Singer. 2010. Biology, 9th Ed. McGraw-Hill: New York, NY.
Raven, P., G.B. Johnson, K.A. Mason, J.B. Losos, and S.S. Singer. 2013. Biology, 10th Ed. McGraw-Hill: New York, NY.
Mason, K., G. Johnson, J. Losos, and S. Singer. 2014. Understanding Biology. McGraw-Hill: New York, NY.
Raven, P., G.B. Johnson, K.A. Mason, J.B. Losos, and S.S. Singer. 2016. Biology, 11th Ed. McGraw-Hill: New York, NY.
Mason, K., T. Duncan, G. Johnson, J. Losos, and S. Singer. 2018. Understanding Biology, 2nd Ed. McGraw-Hill: New York, NY.
INVITED SEMINARS AND SYMPOSIUM CONTRIBUTIONS:
University of Washington, Seattle (1987, 2006), California Academy of Sciences (1988, 1991), Princeton University (1988, 1992), University of California, Irvine (1989), 1st World Congress of Herpetology (1989), American Society of Zoologists (1990), Washington University (1991), Duke University (1991, 1999, 2010), Society for the Study of Evolution (1991, 1993), University of California, San Diego (1992), Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia (1992), University of British Columbia (1992, 2000, 2009), University of Missouri, St. Louis (1993, 1997, 2011), American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (1993, 1997), Rutgers University (1993, 2014), Saint Louis University (1993), Ohio University (1993), 2nd World Congress of Herpetology (1994), Vanderbilt University, (1994), University of Missouri, Columbia (1994), University of California, Berkeley (1994, 2015); Royal Society of London (1994, 1995); University of Miami (1995); Institute of Ecology and Systematics, Cuban Academy of Sciences (1995); University of Chicago (1995); Indiana State University, Terre Haute (1995); Ciba Foundation (1995); Florida State University (1996), Indiana University (1996, 1998, 2004); National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution (1997, 2004); University of Oregon (1997); University of Stellenbosch (1997, 1999); University of Cape Town (1997); University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1998, 2011); Harvard University (1998, 2003, 2004); Yale University (1998); Herpetological Association of Africa (1998); Transvaal Museum of Natural History (1998); Brigham Young University (1998); University of Utah (1998); University of Oklahoma (1998, 2013); Zoological Society of Southern Africa (1999); Venda University (1999); University of Pretoria (1999); Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (1999); International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, Vienna (1999); University of Toronto (1999, 2005, 2013); Cornell University (2000, 2011); University of Tennessee (2000); University of Illinois (2000); University of Arizona (2000); San Francisco State University (2000); St. Louis Zoological Park (2001); University of California, Davis (2001, 2007); Boston University (2002); University of California, Santa Barbara (2002); Tulane University (2002); Michigan State University (2002, 2014); Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand (2003); Southwest Illinois College Darwin Day (2004); Southwest Missouri State University (2004); La Selva Biological Station (2005); National Association of Biology Teachers (2005); University of Connecticut (2007); University of Nevada-Las Vegas (2007); Field Museum of Natural History (2007); University of Texas, Austin (2008); Dartmouth College (2008); Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley, Alumni Symposium invited speaker (2008); Little Cayman Research Center (2009); Salem State Darwin Festival (2010); University of Wisconsin Darwin Day (2010); University of Rochester (2010); Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (2010); University of Sydney (2010); Australian National University (2010); University of New South Wales (2010); Virginia Commonwealth University Darwin Day (2011); Stanford (2011, 2014); University of Massachusetts, Boston (2011); Northeastern University (2011); Scripps Institute of Oceanography (2012); University of Idaho (2012); University of Rhode Island (2012); University of Toronto Darwin Day (2013); Universidad de los Andes (2013); University of Witswatersrand (2013); City College of New York (2013); Clark University (2014); Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Symposium (2014); University of Hawaii (2015); Washington University Darwin Day (2016); John H. Ostrom Program Series, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History (2016); Wesleyan University (2016); Bowdoin College (2016); Columbia University (2016, 2017); University of Kansas (2017); University of Florida (2017)
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE:
Co-organizer, Symposium on Anolis Biology, 1989 meeting of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists.
Member, Committee on the Integrative Role of Systematics in Ecology, Systematics Agenda 2000: Integrating Biological Diversity and Societal Needs, jointly sponsored by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and the Willi Hennig Society, 1991–1993
Member, Board of Governors, American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, 1992–1995
Organizer, Symposium on phylogeny and comparative biology, meeting of the American Society of Zoologists, 1994.
Co-chair, American Society of Zoologists annual meeting, 1994
Research Associate, Department of Vertebrate Zoology, National
Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, 1995–2007
Director (Washington University), Organization for Tropical Studies, 1999–2005
Board of Science Advisors, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, 1999–2002
E.O. Wilson Naturalist Award Committee, 1998–1999; Chair, 1999
Conservation Science Panel, Sustainable Ecosystems Institute, 2000–
Conservation Fellow, Conservation Institute, Saint Louis Zoological Park, 2003–
Co-organizer, 50th annual systematics symposium, Missouri Botanical Garden, "Species reconsidered: Consequences for Biodiversity and Evolution." October, 2003
Science Advisory Panel, Soundprint Media, Inc., proposal to the National Science Foundation to create a 13-part public radio series, Science Applied, 2005–
Science Board, National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, 2005–2008
Advisory Council, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, 2007–2013
Organizer, 50th Anniversary Symposium, “Herpetology in the Age of Genomics,” Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles, 2007
Organizer (with Robert Ricklefs), “The Theory of Island Biogeography at 40: Impacts and Prospects,” Harvard University, 2007
Faculty of 1000 Biology, 2008–2012
Committee for Research and Exploration, National Geographic Society, 2009–
President, American Society of Naturalists, 2010
Henry S. Fitch Excellence in Herpetology Award Committee, American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, 2010–2012; Chair, 2012
Editorial Board, Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia, 2009–2012
Board of Reviewing Editors, Science, 2010-
Science Advisory Board, Life on Earth, 2010–
Editor-in-Chief, Oxford Bibliographies in Evolutionary Biology, 2011-2015
Instructor, Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics Academy, National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, 2012
Departmental Review, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Chair, 2013
Scientific Consultant, The Origin of Species: Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree. Film produced by the Howard Hughes Medical Institutem 2012-2014 http://media.hhmi.org/biointeractive/films/OriginSpecies-Lizards.html
Department Review, Department of Environment, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology, Columbia University, 2014
Associate, Broad Institute, 2015-
Wallace Award Committee, International Biogeography Society, 2016
Membership Panel, Class II, Section 4 (Evolutionary and Population Biology and Ecology), American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2014- ; Chair, 2016-
Princeton University Press Monographs in Population Biology Advisory Board, 2016-
Special Publications Committee, American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, Co-Chair, 2016-
JOURNAL EDITORSHIPS:
Associate Editor, Evolution, 1998–2000
Associate Editor, The American Naturalist, 1998–2002
Editor, The American Naturalist, 2002–2006
Editor, Breviora, 2007–
Editor, Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 2007–
Guest Editor, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2016
COMMUNITY SERVICE:
The Nature Conservancy, Missouri chapter, Board of Trustees, 1996–2002
Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House, Scientific Advisory Panel, 2000–2003
Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House, Long-Range Planning Committee, 2000–2002
Conservation Action Prize Committee, International Center for Tropical Ecology, 2001–2003
Adult Education Task Force, Education Committee, St. Louis Science Center Board of Directors, 2003
Field Research for Conservation Program, St. Louis Zoo, Reviewer, 1998–
Strategic Plan Advisory Committee, St. Louis Zoo, 2006–2007
GRADUATE STUDENT THESIS COMMITTEES:
Jennifer Matos, 1992
Keith Crandall, 1992–1993
Ann Gerber, 1992–1994
Lisa Gould (Anthropology), 1993–1994
Marshal Hedin, 1993–1995
Andi Freedman (University of Miami), 1994–1995
Ben Freed (Anthropology), 1993–1996
Brad Boyle, 1993–1996
Mark Bergeson (Anthropology), 1994–1996
Delbert Hutchison, 1993–1997
Paul Wilson, 1996–1997
Michael Fay (Anthropology), 1996–1997
Susan Jacobs, 1993–1997
Natalia Vasey (Anthropology), 1995–1997
Paul Olson, 1995–1997
Mary Katherine Crombie (Earth and Planetary Sciences), 1997
Shimelis Beyene (Anthropology), 1996–1998
Laura Bischof, 1993–1998
Alan Roberts (University of Western Australia), 1997
Michelle Singleton (Anthropology), 1997–1998
Martin Whiting (University of Stellenbosch), 1998
Alison Graf, 1998–1999
Tomas Hrbek, 1998–1999
Bob Macey, 1994–1999
Reinaldo de Brito, 1995–1999
Kimberly Nekaris (Anthropology), 1999
Donna Hart (Anthropology), 1999
Jason Bradford, 1995–2000
Simon Malcomber, 1996–2000
Jason Rauscher, 1995–2000
Thore Bergman, 1999–2000
Keri Williamson, 1995–2001
Curt Niebur (Earth and Planetary Sciences), 2001
Theresa Berquist (University of Missouri-St. Louis), 1998–2002
Ted Townsend, 2000–2003
Dave Weisrock, 2002–2003
Sylvia Fallon (University of Missouri-St. Louis), 2002–2003
Jared Strasburg, 2003–2004
Crickette Sanz (Anthropology), 2004
Jennifer Brisson, 2004
Alison Miller, 2004
Rosmarie Koch, 2004
Kathryn Oheim, (Master’s degree, Environmental Studies), 2004–2005
Ken Kozak, 2002–2005
Laura Shackelford (Anthropology), 2005
Mercedes Rougés (University of Missouri-St. Louis), 1996–1998
Corey Anderson, 2003–2006
Thom Sanger, 2004–2006
Russell Blaine, 2004–2006
Matthew Gifford, 2004–2006
Kathleen Muldoon (Anthropology), 2005–2006
Charlie Willis, 2008
Santiago Ramirez, 2007–2008
Lynne Mullen, 2008–2010
Ben Wolfe, 2007
Ed Yoo, 2007–2010
Yunke Wu, 2008–2012
Evan Kingsley, 2009–2015
Emily Kay, 2010-2014
Casey Gilman (U. Mass., Amherst), 2012–
Hillery Metz, 2012
Joel Nitta, 2013-2016
Kathleen Foster (U. California, Riverside), 2013–2016
Rebecca Buckman, 2014-2016
James Stroud (Univ. Miami), 2013-
Caitlin Baker, 2016-
Brianna McHorse, 2016-
Julia Cosgrove, 2016-
STUDENTS TRAINED IN LOSOS LAB:
High School Students:
Sara Barker 1994
David Kedmey 1997–1998
Asa Conover 2011–2013
Christian Lehner 2014
Undergraduates:
Mike Coats 1992–1993
Kevin Beuttel 1992–1994
Danielle Glossip 1993–1994
Matt Parks 1993–1994
Ling-Ru Chu 1995–1996
Stephan Koruba 1995–1996
Ted Macrini 1996–1997
Jonathan Forman 1996–1997
Amy Angert 1995–1998
Corinne Joshu 1997–1998
Ian Cornelius 1998–1999
Scott Martinka 1998–1999
Aaron Hames 1997–2000
Kate Knox 1999–2002
Ryan Bickel 2000–2001
Paul Hime 2000–2003
Rachel Novick 2001
Crystal Yates-White 2002–2003
Su Wang 2003–2005
Rebecca Kirby 2003–2005
Deniz Oran 2004
Laura d’Andrea 2005–2006
Sonal Singhal 2005–2006
Jason Ladner 2005
Anthony Buda 2005–2006
Carla Fresquez 2005–2006
Taylor Ramsey 2006
James Shaw 2006
Annie Chen 2006–2008
Debbie Chang 2007
Alison Hsiang 2007
Karen Lovely 2007–2009
Hannah Frank 2007–2009
Lela Sims 2008–2009
Grace Charles 2008–2011
Eva Catenaccio 2009–2010
Rick Stanley 2010–2012
Paul Vanmiddlesworth 2010–2013
Natalie Jacewicz 2011–2013
Ian Shields 2011–2013
Tanner Strickland 2011–2014
Alexander Jaffe 2012–2015
Tyler Gamble 2013-2014
Rachel Moon 2014-2016
Christian Perez 2014-
Graduate Students:
Rotators
Bob Macey 1993–1994
Tomas Hrbek 1993–1994
Dave Weisrock 1998
Corey Anderson 2000
Thomas Sanger 2002–2003
Matt Gifford 2003
Iliana Medina 2011
Kevin Mulder 2011-2012
Hanna Wegener 2012
Simon le Boulh 2011-2012
Angelica Cuevas 2013
Veronica Gomez-Pourroy 2013-2014
Wendy Jesse 2014
Ken Toyama 2015-2016
Martijn van de Schoot 2016
Raphaël Scherrer 2016-
Ph.D. Candidates
Duncan Irschick. 1996. Adaptation, Performance Ability and Evolutionary Diversification in Anolis Lizards.
Marguerite Butler. 1998. Evolution of Sexual Dimorphism and Adaptive Radiation in Anolis Lizards.
Manuel Leal. 2000. Intra- and Interspecific Variation in the Behavioral Responses Given to an Approaching Predator by Anolis Lizards.
John Parks. 2000. Territoriality and Spatial Structure of the Eastern Collared Lizard, Crotaphytus collaris collaris: Spatial, Temporal and Individual Variation.
David Pepin. 2001. Natural History of Monitor Lizards (Family Varanidae) with Evidence from Phylogeny, Ecology, Life History and Morphology.
Doug Creer. 2001. Phylogenetic Relationships, Ontogenetic Color Change, and Antipredator Adaptation in the Colubrinae (Serpentes).
Jim Schulte. 2001. A Phylogenetic and Ecological Analysis of Iguanian Lizard Evolution.
Richard Glor. 2004. Species Diversification in an Adaptive Radiation: A Comparative Analyis of Anolis Lizards.
Luke Harmon. 2005. Competition and Community Structure in Day Geckos (Phelsuma) in the Indian Ocean.
Jason Kolbe. 2005. Anoles Out of Place: An Evolutionary Analysis of Introduced Anolis Lizards.
Michele Johnson. 2007. Behavioral Ecology of Caribbean Anolis Lizards: A comparative Approach.
Brian Langerhans. 2008. Predation and Evolutionary Diversification in Gambusia Fishes.
Liam Revell. 2009. Quantitative Genetics and Evolutionary Inference in a Phylogenetic Context.
Luke Mahler. 2011. Rates and Patterns of Phenotypic Evolution in the Adaptive Radiation of Anolis Lizards.
Yoel Stuart. 2013. Character Displacement and Community Assembly in Anolis Lizards.
Alexis Harrison. 2014. Sexual Selection, Natural Selection and the Evolution of Social Structure in Anolis Lizards.
Martha Muñoz. 2014. A Multidimensional Perspective on the Role of Behavior in Evolution.
Shane Campbell-Staton. 2015. Temperature-Dependent Phylogeography and Physiological Divergence within the Green Anole, Anolis carolinensis.
Katie Boronow. 2011–2015.
Talia Moore. 2016. An Integrative Investigation of Convergent Bipedal Locomotion in Desert Rodents.
Ambika Kamath. 2017. Phenotypic Variation and the Behavioral Ecology of Lizards.
Pavitra Muralidhar. 2014-
Nicholas Herrmann. 2015-
Sofia Prado-Irwin. 2015-
Inbar Mayaan. 2016-
Post-Doctoral Fellows:
Todd Jackman 1994–1999
Delbert Hutchison 1997–1999
Jane Melville 1998–2003
Jason Knouft 2002–2004
Kirsten Nicholson 2001–2006
Tonia Hsieh 2007–2008
Reneé Duckworth 2007–2008
Terry Ord 2007–2010
David Collar 2007–2010
Anthony Herrel 2008
Carlos Infante 2008-2010
Thomas Sanger 2008–2011
Adam Algar 2009–2011
Katharina Wollenberg 2009–2011
Ian Wang 2010–2012
Emma Sherratt 2011–2013
Travis Ingram 2011–2013
Gabriel Gartner 2011–2013
Julia Klaczko 2012–2013
Rosario Castañeda 2012–2014
Pierre-Henri Fabre 2013–2014
Graham Reynolds 2013–2015
Alexis Harrison 2015-2016
Anthony Geneva 2015-
Melissa Kemp 2015-
Oriol Lapiedra 2016-
Claire Dufour 2016-
Colin Donihue 2016-
Renata Moretti 2016-
Michael Logan 2017
UNIVERSITY COMMITTEES:
Washington University
Compton Fellowship Committee, 1994–1999, Chairman 1995–1999
Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Fellowship, 1993–1997
Vice Chairman, 1996–1997
Biology and Environmental Sciences Dual Degree Program
Steering Committee 1994–1999
Faculty Search Committee, 1994–1995, 1995–1996
Tyson Advisory Committee, 1995–1999
Spector Award Committee, 1997
Committee on the Undergraduate Curriculum in Arts and Sciences, 1997
Ecologist/Evolutionary Developmental Biologist Faculty Search
Committee, Chair, 1997–1999
Tyson Station Manager Search Committee, Chair, 1997–1998
Tyson Director Search Committee, Chair, 1998–1999, 2002–2003
Environmental Studies Steering Committee, 1995–2005
Committee on Research Integrity, 1998–2004
Committee on Environmental Quality, 2000–2005
Evolution and Population Biology Steering Committee, 1992–2006
Director, 1997–2005
Evolution and Population Biology Graduate Admissions
Committee, 1992–2006
Lennette Fellowship Award Committee, Chair 2000–2005
Markey Professorship Search Committee, 2002–2005
Advisory Board, Center for Applied Human Values, 2003–2006
Advisory Committee of the Center for Scientific Parallel Computing, 2003–2004
GIS Advisory Committee, 2004–2005
Task Force to Consider Preparation of Undergraduates for Careers in the Life Sciences, 2004–2005
Harvard University
Physiological Ecologist Faculty Search Committee, Chair, 2006–2007
Policy Committee, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, 2006–
Grants for Undergraduate Research Selection Committee, Museum of Comparative Zoology, 2006–2010
Promotion Review Committee for Kathleen Donohue, 2007
Ernest E. Williams Memorial Minute Committee, Chair, 2007–2009
Hrdy Fellowship Committee, Chair, 2007–2010
Advisor, Color Exhibit, Harvard University Natural History Museum, 2007–2008
Goelet Award Committee, Museum of Comparative Zoology, 2008–2010
Cuban Studies Committee, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, 2008–
Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution Faculty Search Committee, Chair, 2008
Miyata Award Committee, Museum of Comparative Zoology, 2008–2010
Prather Lecture Selection Committee, Chair, 2009–2010
OEB Seminar Committee, Chair, 2009–2014; committee member, 2015-
Standing Committee on the Concentration in Environmental Science and Public Policy, 2008–
Director of Graduate Studies, Dept. Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, 2010-2014
Committee member, 2016
Board of Tutors, Environmental Science and Public Policy, 2011–
Promotion Review Committee for Charles Davis, Chair, 2009–2010
Primate behavior faculty search committee, committee, Dept. Human Evolutionary Biology, 2009–2010
Paleontology Faculty Search Committee, Chair, 2010–2012
Promotion Review Committee for Arkhat Abzhanov, 2013–2014
Plant Biodiversity Faculty Search Committee, 2013–2014
Ernst Mayer Travel Grant Committee, 2013, 2016-2017
Faculty Grants Program Award Committee, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, 2014
Board of Syndics, Harvard University Press, 2015-
Faculty Fellow, Women’s Tennis Team, 2015-
OEB Faculty Activities Committee, Chair, 2016-
OEB representative to HILS Committee, 2016-
MEME Student Selection Committee, 2016-
Second Year Review Committee for Robin Hopkins, 2016-
Behavioral/Physiological Ecologist Search Committee, Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, 2016-
Mexican Research Fellows Program selection committee, 2017-
Jonathan B. Losos
Photo of Jonathan B. Losos
About the Author
Jonathan B. Losos is a biology professor and director of the Losos Laboratory at Harvard University and Curator of Herpetology at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. His research regularly appears in top scientific journals, such as Nature and Science, and he has written a popular series about his work for The New York Times. Losos is the editor in chief of The Princeton Guide to Evolution and a member of the National Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration. He is the author of Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adaptive Radiation of Anoles.
Improbable Destinies
Henry L. Carrigan
BookPage.
(Aug. 2017): p26. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 BookPage http://bookpage.com/
Full Text:
Every now and then a brilliant book comes along that helps us rethink what we know about a subject. Jonathan B. Losos' fascinating, compulsively readable Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution is just such a book; it offers an opportunity for us to ponder the process of evolution, the questions that have fueled recent debates and the extent to which evolutionary biology can be confirmed through experimentation.
Harvard biologist Losos raises two key questions that lie at the heart of conversations about evolution: Is it predictable? Or is it contingent? These questions spiral into more queries: If the process of natural selection and adaptation takes place slowly over time--as scientists traditionally believed--can we really observe it and reach provable conclusions? Can we conduct large field experiments that would give us insights into evolution?
Drawing on his own experiments with lizards, as well as on the research of others in the Galapagos, Losos illustrates that the pace of evolutionary change is not glacial, and that evolutionary change can be observed over a relatively short time. He also concludes that con- vergence--in which species living in similar environments will adapt similar features--has emerged as a challenge to those scientists who argue that evolution is unpredictable, random and nonrepeatable. Losos demonstrates that "the contingencies of history play a minor role, their effects erased by the predictable push of natural selection."
With vivacious writing and thoughtful, provocative insights, Losos' captivating study of evolution deserves to be read alongside the books of E.O. Wilson (The Social Conquest of Earth) and Stephen Jay Gould (Wonderful Life).
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Losos
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Riverhead
$28, 384 pages
ISBN 9780399184925 eBook available SCIENCE
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Carrigan, Henry L. "Improbable Destinies." BookPage, Aug. 2017, p. 26. PowerSearch,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A499345399/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=d52c4e8e. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A499345399
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Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and
the Future of Evolution
Bryce Christensen
Booklist.
113.21 (July 1, 2017): p6. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
* Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution. By Jonathan B. Losos.
Aug. 2017.384p. Riverhead, $28 (9780399184925). 576.8.
Was the duck-billed platypus an evolutionary inevitability? Or did this strange creature evolve because of some unlikely disruption in nature? Australia's most peculiar mammal I counts as just one of the many species Losos scrutinizes as he assesses the relative impact on evolution of the predictable and the random. Losos frames his illuminating foray into evolutionary theory as a response to Stephen Jay Goulds argument that evolution unfolds so erratically that if we could reset the worlds natural history to zero, the next iteration of that history would yield entirely different results. Venturing to the frontiers of biological research, Losos adduces evidence both undermining and buttressing Gould's claim. Readers learn a great deal about how convergent evolution pushes widely separated populations of microbes, fish, birds, lizards, and mice along remarkably parallel--and predictable--paths of species development, so long as they face similar natural stresses. However, readers also learn about far less scripted evolutionary trajectories issuing in one-of-a-kind species: platypus, chameleon, kiwi, and human. In a refreshingly accessible narrative, laced with piquant anecdotes, Losos underscores the human significance of science affecting not only how we interpret our own place on the planet but also how we envision life in distant galaxies. Wonderfully lucid; singularly engaging.--Bryce Christensen
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Christensen, Bryce. "Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution." Booklist,
1 July 2017, p. 6. PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A499862628 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=d7b66d11. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018.
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Losos, Jonathan B.: IMPROBABLE DESTINIES
Kirkus Reviews.
(June 1, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Losos, Jonathan B. IMPROBABLE DESTINIES Riverhead (Adult Nonfiction) $28.00 8, 8 ISBN: 978-0-399-18492-5
A fresh take on evolution and how "we can study [it] as it occurs, right before our eyes."Good books on evolution appear regularly. In this excellent book, Losos (Biology/Harvard Univ.; Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adaptive Radiation of Anoles, 2009, etc.), the curator of herpetology at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, asks a big question that readers may not have considered: is evolution predictable? The author delivers an often startling, convincing, and entirely satisfying answer. In Hollywood science fiction, intelligent beings from distant planets look like us with a few tweaks. Science buffs sneer, but Losos maintains that this is reasonable. Provided the far-off planet's environment resembles ours, life will evolve more or less in parallel. "There are limited ways to make a living in the natural world," writes the author, "so natural selection drives the evolution of the same features time and again." This is convergence, a process in which unrelated organisms develop similar traits as they evolve in similar environments. The iconic example: when a mammal and a reptile evolved to live in the ocean, the creatures (dolphin, ichthyosaur) looked alike and little different from a tuna. Even more startling, evolution itself has become an experimental science. A brilliant experimenter, Darwin never tested his greatest idea because he thought natural selection occurred at a glacial speed. In fact, when pressures are strong, species change visibly within generations. Losos devotes the second half of the book to juicy, hair-raising, if sometimes-tedious experiments in which scientists show evolution occurring before their eyes. Protected from grazing rabbits, plants run wild within years. Nearly 65,000 generations of bacteria, carefully observed over three decades, have undergone profound, permanent changes. Years of measuring lizard legs (the author's specialty) or decades devoted to finch beaks or guppy color also turn up solid genetic transformation. A cheerful, delightfully lucid primer on evolution and the predictive possibilities within the field.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Losos, Jonathan B.: IMPROBABLE DESTINIES." Kirkus Reviews, 1 June 2017. PowerSearch,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A493329199/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=8710b3d9. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A493329199
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Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution
Publishers Weekly.
264.21 (May 22, 2017): p85. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution Jonathan B. Losos. Riverhead, $28 (384p) ISBN 978-0-399-18492-5
Losos (Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree), professor of biology at Harvard, explores whether evolution is deterministic or subject to various contingencies, along the way posing two even more basic questions: How do we know what we know, and can ecology be considered an experimental science? Describing both field and laboratory work, Losos demonstrates how the combination of experimentation and observation has led to great insight into nature. Whether he is discussing his own research on lizards in the Bahamas or the work of other researchers in the Galapagos, British Columbia, or a laboratory at Michigan State, Losos explains both the science and the underlying philosophy of the questions being asked in an accessible and engaging manner. Unsurprisingly, the answer to his original question remains inconclusive. He makes clear that evolution proceeds similarly in many situations, though small, random perturbations can apparently lead to divergent outcomes that make evolution less predictable than some scientists would have us believe. Losos's conclusion is well summarized when he quotes biologist Rich Lenski: "Both sets of forces--the random and the predictable, as it were--together give rise to what we call history." The book is as enjoyable as it is informative, and it demonstrates how scientists think critically and assess data carefully. Illus. Agent: Max Brockman, Brockmanlnc. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution." Publishers Weekly, 22 May
2017, p. 85. PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A494099094 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=2dd5d37d. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A494099094
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The Princeton Guide to Evolution
Christine Sharbrough
Library Journal.
138.17 (Oct. 15, 2013): p132. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2013 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
The Princeton Guide to Evolution. Princeton Univ. Dec. 2013. 928p. ed. by Jonathan B. Losos & others. illus. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780691149776. $99. REF
The editors' intention with this book is to create a broad reference to all aspects of evolution, vastly updating Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which was written 150 years ago. The Guide is sectioned into eight parts and need not be read straight through to be useful. Some articles are very technical, while others can be read by those seeking basic information. In this way, the volume works for both professionals and lay persons. Each article begins with an outline and glossary to aid the reader in understanding the material. A section for further reading is also included. Biology students will find this material helpful, and those with a desire to learn more about the history of life, genes, evolutionary processes, and the like might also find this a worthwhile title to peruse. VERDICT A comprehensive guide to all aspects of evolution. Great for students and teachers of the subject.--Christine Sharbrough, Chelmsford P.L., MA
Sharbrough, Christine
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Sharbrough, Christine. "The Princeton Guide to Evolution." Library Journal, 15 Oct. 2013, p.
132. PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A344826923/GPS?u=schlager& sid=GPS&xid=8e0b0507. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018.
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The Princeton Guide to Evolution
Rebecca Vnuk
Booklist.
110.7 (Dec. 1, 2013): p40. From Book Review Index Plus.
COPYRIGHT 2013 American Library Association http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
The Princeton Guide to Evolution. Ed. by Jonathan B. Loses. Dec. 2013. 855p. illus. Princeton, $99 (9780691149776). 576.
This comprehensive reference covers an enormous breadth of information on the major subjects and key concepts in evolutionary biology. Seven sections cover the major topics in evolution: "Phylogenetics and the History of Life"; "Natural Selection and Adaptation"; "Evolutionary Processes"; "Genes, Genomes, and Phenotypes"; "Speciation and Macroevolution"; "Evolution of Behavior, Society, and Humans"; and "Evolution and Modern Society."
Each section begins with a concise introduction and is then further divided into scholarly articles ranging from 5 to 12 pages in length. These signed articles discuss the fossil record, natural selection, experimental populations, gene duplication, various behaviors in both animals and humans, and more. Notably, each article includes an outline, a glossary section specific to that topic, and a bibliography. There are black-and-white line drawings, tables, and charts scattered throughout and a section of six color plates. The list of international contributors consists of leading evolutionary biologists from a variety of academic institutions. This dense and scholarly title is appropriate for most academic libraries serving upper-level science programs.--Rebecca Vnuk
Vnuk, Rebecca
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Vnuk, Rebecca. "The Princeton Guide to Evolution." Booklist, 1 Dec. 2013, p. 40. PowerSearch,
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Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree:
Ecology and Adaptive Radiation of
Anoles
Laurie J. Vitt
BioScience.
60.8 (Sept. 2010): p653+. From Book Review Index Plus. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/bio.2010.60.8.16 COPYRIGHT 2010 University of California Press http://ucpressjournals.com/journal.asp?j=bio
Full Text:
Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adaptive Radiation of Anoles. Jonathan B. Losos. University of California Press, 2009. 528 pp., illus. $75.00 (ISBN 9780520255913 cloth).
During the past 50 years, the subset of squamate reptiles popularly known as "lizards" has risen to nearly star status among vertebrates as model organisms for understanding evolutionary, ecological, physiological, and behavioral processes. Among the approximately 7200 named species of squamates, about 4450 are typically called lizards (a taxonomic misnomer), and among these, about 365 are anoles. Almost everyone who has visited the Caribbean islands, Central America, or Florida has seen colorful anole dewlaps flashing in response to other anoles. Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree, by Jonathan B. Losos, centers on the use of these remarkable lizards to place major ecological principles in an evolutionary context. Losos is a Monique and Philip Lehner Professor for the study of Latin America, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, and curator of herpetology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.
Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree succeeds on all fronts. First, it is readable. Losos writes in an engaging and storylike fashion, readily transmitting scientific discovery to the reader. Second, a wealth of information is summarized--one cannot help but find these lizards fascinating. Third, clearly written natural histories of anoles draw the reader deep into conceptual biology--this book could easily be used to teach an evolution or ecology course. Every discussion challenges the reader with new unanswered questions.
I particularly like the structure of the book. Losos first tells us what he plans to do, and why, in an engaging introduction to his scientific approach. He then leads a tour of anole diversity followed by a logically clear discussion of the advantages and limitations of phylogenetic perspectives by asking questions about behavior and ecology. Chapters on behavior, ecology, life history, community ecology, microevolution, and functional capabilities are filled with detailed examples that read like mystery stories. These chapters are followed by a discussion of speciation and adaptive radiation of anoles in which all that came before is put into historical perspective. The final section of the book discusses anoles from a broad perspective and compares adaptive
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radiations in anoles with those of other groups of organisms.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The reasons anoles are ideal models for evolutionary and ecological studies include their high evolutionary diversity, spectacular and repeated radiations, a large range in body sizes, assemblages of varying sizes and origins, diurnality, and high ecological diversity. Their high densities on islands in the West Indies make them particularly suitable for experimental manipulations. And last, but certainly not least, they are easy to capture! As Losos correctly points out, the enormous amount of literature on nearly every aspect of the biology of various Anolis species, combined with relatively recent, well-supported phylogenetic hypotheses, has brought anoles to center stage when it comes to testing conceptual hypotheses with lizards.
The overriding theme of Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree is that interspecific interactions-- primarily competition--have been and continue to be primary determinants of community structure in Anolis lizards. A combination of fossil (dating) and phylogenetic (relationships) data tell part of the story. Hypotheses generated from historical data can be tested as more data become available. The power of a phylogenetic approach is clear in a reconstruction of the evolution of ecomorphs in the Greater Antilles. Ecomorphs originated independently on different islands, and several ecomorphs evolved independently multiple times on single islands. The end result is convergent community structure on different islands.
The challenge, of course, is measuring evolutionary change. We know what occurred (convergent evolution of assemblages), we know the likely mechanism (interspecific interactions), but can we demonstrate a measurable evolutionary response? After all, lizards are not fruit flies with high reproductive rates and short generation times. We presume that microevolution in lizards happens so slowly that detectable changes might not occur during the lifetime of an investigator, but this may not be so. Measurement of selection gradients on populations of anoles on different islands, some with and some without the predatory curly-tailed lizard (Leiocephalus), revealed that larger female Anolis sagrei are favored on islands with predators. Males are also affected, but a number of interacting factors complicate the results, including a relationship between island size and selection acting on male hindlimb length. Particularly interesting is a shift in microhabitat use by anoles in response to predators. Predators outrun shorter-legged anoles more easily, but shorter- legged anoles are better at using arboreal perches and thus escaping the terrestrial curly-tailed lizards. After only six months, not only does a significant microhabitat shift occur (terrestrial to arboreal) in A. sagrei but population hindlimb length decreases accordingly, thereby suggesting
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natural selection in the predicted direction. Relative hindlimb length in anoles is an ideal trait with which to examine form and function because of its correlation with microhabitat use. As a result, macroevolutionary forces can be examined by tying phenotypic variation to ecological causes; basically, the phenotype [right arrow] performance [right arrow], fitness paradigm.
The discussion of island and mainland anoles in Chapter 16 ("The Five Faunas Reconsidered") especially caught my attention because it is both speculative and thought provoking. The compelling argument is that differences in density and diversity of predators on island and mainland habitats affected the course that evolution may have taken. Alternatively, one might wonder whether frequent (evolutionarily speaking) catastrophic events (such as hurricanes) on West Indian islands have repeatedly affected anole populations such that the ability to rapidly respond to habitat change in itself has been favored. "Evolvability" is addressed in the last chapter. Anoles show greater variability in morphology and thermal physiology than other lizard clades. It might be instructive to conduct laboratory experiments to determine whether island and mainland anoles differ in their ability to change limb length or thermal physiology in response to habitat characteristics. A long history of predictably high predator diversity and abundance may have had a lesser impact on evolutionary rates in mainland anoles than a long history of catastrophic events has had on island anoles.
The overall layout of the book, with a single column of text on each page, is appealing. I particularly like the creative use of annotations, which allows the text to flow while giving the interested reader additional detailed information (and some very entertaining anecdotes). Color photographs and graphics throughout complement the presentation. Only one rather minor inconsistency in the text comes to mind: Following a convincing defense of the phylogenetic species concept, Losos emphasizes "reproductive isolation as an appropriate framework for consideration of the nature of anole species" (p. 22). Yet the entire book emphasizes a phylogenetic approach to understanding the evolution and diversity of anoles. That aside, errors are rare (e.g., listing "Pianka and Vitt 2003" as "Vitt and Pianka 2003" in the literature cited).
Although Losos targets the book to "those deeply interested in anoles and those interested in general questions of biodiversity, evolutionary biology and ecology" (p. 8), I would broaden that to include all students of the natural sciences interested in discerning how inquisitive scientists reconstruct the history of life. A good reading of Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree will most likely result in "field envy" by laboratory experimentalists. For Jonathan Losos, the laboratory is the West Indies, his Petri dishes are the many islands teeming with Anolis lizards, and his experiments are real-world demonstrations that natural selection has produced an astounding diversity of life on Earth.
doi: 10.1525/bio.2010.60.8.16
Laurie J. Viii (vitt@ou.edu) is a George Lynn Cross Research Professor and curator of reptiles at the Sam Noble Museum, University of Oklahoma, in Norman.
Vitt, Laurie J.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Vitt, Laurie J. "Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adaptive Radiation of Anoles."
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BioScience, vol. 60, no. 8, 2010, p. 653+. PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc /A236878585/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=53453aef. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018.
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The Princeton Guide to Evolution
Reference & Research Book News. (Apr. 2014): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2014 Ringgold, Inc. http://www.ringgold.com/
Full Text:
9780691149776
The Princeton Guide to Evolution
Edited by Jonathan B. Losos, David A. Baum, Douglas J. Futuyma, Hopi E. Hoekstra, et al. Princeton U. Press
2013
853 pages
$99.00
Hardcover
QH367
Evolutionary biology and the theory underlying it are among the most exciting and important subjects in all of science--cosmology notwithstanding--and a compendium of current up-to-date authoritative information is necessary every so often. This year, this book fulfills the purpose. Edited by a group of international experts in the field, this guide certainly goes for maximum effect: the style is accessible but not shallow, and the basic concepts are developed rigorously and with plenty of supporting information, Major sections deal with phylogenetics and the history of life, the mechanisms (tempo and mode, to borrow the title of Simpson's groundbreaking book) of natural selection and adaptation; specific evolutionary processes, from drift to mutation, with specific attention paid to migration, inbreeding, and evolution of mating systems; speciation; evolution of behavior and ethology; and, of course, the meaning and import of evolutionary theory to modern society.
([c] Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Princeton Guide to Evolution." Reference & Research Book News, Apr. 2014. PowerSearch,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A363595908/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=3d314db7. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018.
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In the Light of Evolution: Essays from the Laboratory and Field
Nature.
469.7330 (Jan. 20, 2011): p295. From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2011 Nature Publishing Group http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html
Full Text:
In the Light of Evolution: Essays from the Laboratory and Field
Edited by Jonathan B. Losos Roberts and Company Publishers 336 pp. $49.95 (2011)
Leading experts in evolution report from the field in this collection of plainspoken essays, providing a valuable resource for non-specialists wanting to improve their understanding of this vital topic. Historian Janet Browne writes on Charles Darwin; writer Carl Zimmer muses on microbes; Daniel Lieberman discusses the evolution of human bipedalism; Marlene Zuk and Teri Orr examine sexual selection; and Neil Shubin unearths tetrapods and evolutionary steps in the fossil record.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"In the Light of Evolution: Essays from the Laboratory and Field." Nature, vol. 469, no. 7330,
2011, p. 295. PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A247530186 /GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=c097ab85. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018.
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The glass half full
David J. Currie
BioScience.
60.11 (Dec. 2010): p952+. From Book Review Index Plus. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/bio.2010.60.11.14 COPYRIGHT 2010 University of California Press http://ucpressjournals.com/journal.asp?j=bio
Full Text:
The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited. Jonathan B. Losos and Robert E. Ricklefs, eds. Princeton University Press, 2009. 494 pp., illus. $49.50 (ISBN 9780691136530 paper).
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited is the fruit of a symposium held at Harvard in 2007 in honor of the 40th anniversary of the publication of Robert MacArthur and E. O. Wilson's The Theory of Island Biogeography (TTIB). The organizers of the symposium invited a who's who of community and island ecologists. Sixteen participants produced chapters for the book; the result is a very good overview of a wide body of work that draws inspiration from, but does not necessarily directly follow, TTIB. The text of this new work is accessible, readable, and often engaging. I was motivated to read it cover to cover, and even to buy another copy after I misplaced my first one. I have suggested the book to my new graduate students as a font of interesting ideas for their research proposals.
The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited could easily serve as the centerpiece of a graduate course, in part because of its very discussable shortcomings. The book begins with reviews of how island biogeography theory came to be (recounted by Wilson), then discusses subsequent tests of the theory (reviewed by Schoener and Lomolino and colleagues). Neither chapter explicitly states any conclusions, but Schoener's indicates that the bulk of the evidence is consistent with TTIB (the glass being fairly full). Laurence discusses fragmentation effects in nature, commenting that although TTIB may be a conceptual Mount Everest, it is "simplistic to the point of being cartoonish" (the glass having obvious emptiness).
A second portion of the book (which is not explicitly organized in thematic sections) focuses on
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work that was inspired by ideas in TTIB. Notable among these is metacommunity theory. Hanski discusses metapopulation models beginning with TTIB and Levins's work from the same era, continuing through his own work. Chapters by Holt and by Terborgh examine trophic relationships on islands, going beyond TTIB's emphasis on species counting. A third part deals with community assembly. Simberloff and Collins review the notions of assembly rules and checkerboard distributions in a chapter redolent of the late 1970s (except for want of a companion chapter by Diamond). Hubbell contrasts predictions from neutral theory and from Tilman's R* theory, testing them against his Barro Colorado Island data (there is no matching piece from Tilman).
The lion's share of The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited is devoted to reviews of evolutionary effects on islands. Several chapters pertain to the dynamics of colonization, speciation, and hybridization--illustrated by the birds of the Galapagos (by the Grants, framed as an homage to "Ed Wilson the Naturalist"), birds of the Lesser Antilles (Ricklefs), as well as anoles of the Antilles and snails of the Galapagos (Losos and Parent)--or discuss islands more generally (Clegg, and Gillespie and Baldwin).
Although the chapters were generally quite good, I was disappointed by the book. First, there are no abstracts. Abstracts force authors to identify their central message. The book would have been more interesting and more useful if the authors had been expected to make an identifiable conceptual advance in their chapters. Second, in a book with this title, I thought I would see tests of and successors to TTIB. A classic MacArthur quote is: "To do science is to search for repeated patterns, not simply to accumulate facts" (from the preface to his Geographical Ecology). TTIB presented general patterns and then proposed a mechanism that made explicit predictions about the observed patterns (variation of richness with area and with isolation) and how the patterns should look under new circumstances (e.g., during habitat fragmentation or during initial colonization of an island). The resulting statistical models accounted for quite a lot of the geographic variation in species richness. Therefore, I expected to see assessments of the limitations of TTIB (e.g., that TTIB's scope is limited to particular archipelagos), and modified models that address those limitations (e.g., D. H. Wright's 1983 species-energy work). I thought I might see meta-analyses comparing the conditions where TTIB failed empirical tests with conditions where it passed, followed by more general models that address those limitations and failures.
However, this book contains strikingly little systematic examination of general patterns. Rather, there were often lists of processes that can affect species distributions (e.g., niche preemption, founder effects, sympatric speciation, etc.), followed by a supporting example or two (i.e., some accumulated facts). Evidence was very often presented to support, rather than test, ideas. In particular, given the emphasis on evolutionary processes, there was surprisingly little effort to statistically incorporate these into modifications of TTIB, or to assess to what extent variation in biotic assemblages among islands can be statistically related to differences in evolutionary processes, versus differences in contemporary environment. Only one chapter of this book seems to start explicitly with TTIB and further develop its concepts: Whittaker and colleagues extend TTIB to include island age as a factor influencing island richness.
My third reservation is philosophical. Vellend and Orrock, in the concluding chapter of the book,
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put their finger on it. Comparing the fields of community ecology and population genetics, they remark that community ecology developed in light of obvious patterns in nature (e.g., latitudinal variation in richness), whereas population genetics developed as a theoretical discipline in the absence of much data on allele frequencies. Thus, Vellend and Orrock say, "although population genetics appears to rest on a firmer theoretical foundation than community ecology, we are not actually any better at predicting broad scale patterns of genetic diversity than we are at predicting broad scale patterns in communities. If anything, the opposite is true." But--and here's the rub--"the difference is that in population genetics this is not considered a short-coming given the coherent set of basic models that can be successfully tailored to meet the inherently contingent specifics of any particular case, whereas in ecology we are set up for disappointment when we hope for grand all-encompassing theories to make the contingencies disappear" (p. 453). Vellend and Orrock then propose an organizational structure for community ecology on the basis of population genetics.
This argument gets to the question of what science is supposed to do. On the one hand, if the purpose of science is to develop theories that predict the behavior of nature, then one may ask: What can we predict now, 40 years after TTIB, that we could not predict in its immediate wake? Dismayingly little, judging from this book. On the other hand, one may argue (as Vellend and Orrock seem to say, and plenty of other chapters in this book seem to do) that the purpose of science is to elucidate mechanisms that operate under at least some circumstances (e.g., in controlled experiments), and to provide a plausible example or two from nature to illustrate those mechanisms. Thus armed, one can sally forth to explain (a posteriori) the contingent specifics of particular cases. In this view, this revisitation of TTIB will be very satisfying. Even for die-hard predictionists (such as myself), The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited has a wealth of ideas whose general predictive ability begs testing.
doi: 10.1525/bio.2010.60.11.14 DAVID J. CURRIE
David ]. Currie (dcurrie@uottawa.ca) is a professor in the Biology Department at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is editor in chief of Global Ecology and Biogeography: A Journal of Macroecology, published by Wiley-Blackwell.
Currie, David J.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Currie, David J. "The glass half full." BioScience, vol. 60, no. 11, 2010, p. 952+. PowerSearch,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A244888030/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=afeec393. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018.
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Book World: Lassoing lizards to explore
the mysteries of evolution
Barbara J. King
The Washington Post.
(Aug. 28, 2017): News: From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Full Text:
Byline: Barbara J. King
Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution By Jonathan B. Losos
Riverhead. 368 pp. $28
---
Evolutionary biologist Jonathan B. Losos has spent a lot of time on tropical islands chasing small lizards called brown anoles, lassoing them with waxed dental floss and measuring their legs. As it turns out, anole species that use broader surfaces to get around have evolved longer legs compared with their narrow-substrate counterparts. In "Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution," Losos amusingly recounts the times during his research when he was outwitted by these "pea-brained" anoles or coped with surprises such as roaches lurking in his cereal box.
But Losos spins a serious science story through the lens of lizard legs, with remarkable skill. He reaches beyond the behavior of the plants and animals filling his pages to tackle a question central to today's practice of evolutionary biology: "whether natural selection inevitably produces the same evolutionary outcomes or whether the particular events a lineage experiences - the contingencies of history - affect the end result."
The revered figure of Harvard evolutionary biologist and science popularizer Stephen Jay Gould looms behind this question. Gould, who died in 2002, took a hard-line stance for contingency and against evolutionary predictability. Replay the tape of life, he famously wrote, and nothing would unfold in the same way it first had: We humans wouldn't even be here. Too many tiny variables would cascade through the millennia to allow the same evolutionary pathway to occur twice.
At first, by offering abundant instances of convergent evolution under natural conditions, Losos veers toward an anti-Gouldian perspective. The caffeine molecule in coffee, tea and cacao, three plants not closely related, evolved independently. Eyes of humans and octopuses are "nearly identical" although their shared ancestry is a half-billion years back. In the Greater Antilles, anole
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lizards on four different islands - again, not close kin - carve up the habitat in the same ways, as do mouse-eared bats across different regions in many parts of the world.
Soon, Losos beautifully complicates this story. Species often fail to converge even when faced with similar selection pressures. Cape buffaloes' horns, impalas' long legs, porcupines' spines and the projectile venom of the spitting cobra are all adaptations to sharing habitat with predators such as lions. An animal's existing structure and physiology constrain what evolutionary pathways may be taken. As Losos reminds us, natural selection, lacking foresight, "won't favor a detrimental feature just because it is an early step on a path leading to an ultimately superior condition."
Dueling lists, offered either in support of or against evolutionary predictability, yield no definitive answer. How about experiments that test the question of evolutionary determinism directly? Here, "Improbable Destinies" really soars, achieving at times the pace and wow factor of thrill fiction.
From Darwin's time until about 50 years ago, it had been thought that evolution occurred at such a slow pace that it would be impossible to field-test hypotheses relating to it. Losos takes some poetic license in suggesting that we now know evolution may operate "at light speed," but from a perspective of eons of geological time, he's not far wrong. Working in Trinidad in the 1970s, zoologist John Endler moved guppies from streams dense with pike cichlids, "a streamlined torpedo with teeth that makes its living eating guppies," to other streams containing killifish, which take a far more lackluster approach to consuming guppies. In a mere two years, the guppies evolved from drab-colored with small spots to colorful with larger spots in response to the great lessening of predation pressure.
Losos mentions in passing "several potential harms" that come with relocating animals like this. Indeed, throughout the book, scientists are shown relentlessly interfering with animals' lives, as when the mortality of light- and dark-colored deer mice in Nebraska zooms up because they were moved around for an adaptation experiment. Animals routinely face all sorts of death pressures in the wild, of course; whole lizard populations were washed away by hurricanes during Losos's research. When scientists intervene with apparent aplomb, however, ethical concerns deserve a fuller hearing.
Whatever their pros and cons, from these experiments on numerous species, the take-home message became clear: Evolution can be rapid and, to some notable degree, predictable. So was Gould wrong? If we could rewind the tape of life, would evolution unfold again in much the same way? Settling for no easy answers, Losos adds layer upon layer of nuance as he shows just how challenging it is to answer this question conclusively. A laboratory experiment with E. coli run by Rich Lenski, now nearing its third continuous decade and involving more than 64,000 generations, encapsulates why. At the start, all the E. coli were genetically identical, meaning that when they were made to encounter new experimental conditions, mutation was the sole available pathway for evolutionary change. After 14 years, the data indicated that "faced with the same selective environment, populations independently evolved in the same way." Then came the stunner: One population evolved an adaptation, the ability to feed on citrate as well as glucose in the presence of oxygen, that had apparently never occurred before. "So much for predictability
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and parallel evolution!" Losos exclaims.
It may take many generations for evolutionary unpredictabilities to show up, then. Both random and highly (though not completely) determined paths occur, and it's scientists' job to figure out the relative contributions of each, in each individual case.
Why does any of this matter outside of the science classroom? Knowledge of evolutionary pathways may help us fight the potential catastrophe of increased antibiotic resistance or design custom treatments for cystic fibrosis patients who suffer from bacterial rampages in their lungs. Maybe it can even help us think through animals' and plants' responses to global warming patterns or the potential forms extraterrestrial life might take. Yet science need not be applied to our own well-being to matter. With an ideal combination of clarity and comedy, scholarly caution and infectious enthusiasm, Losos shows us how evolutionary biology opens up for each of us the glorious workings of our world, with surprises around every corner.
---
King is emerita professor of anthropology at the College of William and Mary. Her latest book is "Personalities on the Plate: The Lives & Minds of Animals We Eat."
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
King, Barbara J. "Book World: Lassoing lizards to explore the mysteries of evolution."
Washington Post, 28 Aug. 2017. PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc /A502040564/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS&xid=9ad9b301. Accessed 23 Jan. 2018.
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Biologist Jonathan Losos Explores 'Convergent Evolution' In 'Improbable Destinies'
6:25
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September 7, 20174:28 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
NPR's Robert Siegel speaks with Jonathan Losos, author of the new book, Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution, which explores the growing understanding of "convergent evolution."
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Biologist Jonathan Losos and I have at least one thing in common - we were both blown away by the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould's 1989 book "Wonderful Life." Gould saw evolution as being all about odd contingencies, accidents. Had one evolutionary step gone a different way, life on Earth could've ended up radically different. Losos read the book, and Gould helped inspire him to become a biologist. He's a professor at Harvard and the author of a new book called "Improbable Destinies." One thing he is not anymore is quite so much a believer in Gould's insistence on chance and contingency driving evolutionary change. Jonathan Losos, welcome to the program.
JONATHAN LOSOS: Thank you very much; a pleasure to be here.
SIEGEL: At the heart of your book and your conversion, I guess, is the growth in recent decades of an understanding of convergence as a principle in evolution. Can you define convergence for us?
LOSOS: Well, convergent evolution is when two species independently evolve to be similar.
SIEGEL: And the best example that you give that I can recall is the remains of an aquatic dinosaur, a dolphin and a shark. They all developed dorsal fins, flippers, sleek bodies, but they didn't all develop from the same set of accidents that were happening randomly.
LOSOS: That's absolutely true. They evolved from three very different ancestors, and yet they ended up looking almost identical. They're all streamlined animals with a powerful tail for propulsion, two flippers for steering and a dorsal fin for stability. So the animals, if you saw one, you might - people mistake sharks for dolphins and the other way around. And so they have convergently evolved to be very similar. Now, the reason they've done that is that they have evolved a body form that is very optimally designed for moving quickly through water. And so in fact, if engineers were designing an animal to do that, that's pretty much the body shape they would pick.
SIEGEL: So the idea of convergent evolution is that common environmental factors would drive evolutionary change in some common directions. It's not all haphazard and accidental in that sense.
LOSOS: Yes, exactly. Convergent evolution most commonly occurs when species adapt to the same environmental circumstance in the same way.
SIEGEL: Has genomic research been the difference here? I mean, we've known for a long time that a shark and a dolphin are different. But is it that we can now see how unrelated an English finch and a very similar Australian finch are in a way that we couldn't see before?
LOSOS: That's exactly it. We've known about convergent evolution for a very long time. Charles Darwin remarked upon it in "On The Origin Of Species." But we had no idea how common it was. And that was until we've gotten a better idea of the evolutionary tree of life, of how species are related to each other. And the flood of molecular DNA data that has come forth in the last two decades or so has in many cases revised our understanding about how species are related to each other. And it has revealed that many species that we thought were similar because they're closely related, that they're not closely related and that their similarity is the result of convergent evolution.
SIEGEL: Of course, one interesting speculative debate is the question of whether life on other planets would resemble life on Earth. And accepting the power of convergence as a guiding principle, I guess the answer would probably be yes. There are structural and environmental reasons for life developing as it has here. I mean, they would probably apply elsewhere.
LOSOS: We now know in just the last few years that there are many, many planets in the universe very similar to Earth - millions, maybe billions, in our own Milky Way galaxy. And so many scientists think that if there are that many Earth-like planets - and what I mean by Earth-like is of similar size, chemical composition, running water, temperature and so on, so very similar in many respects to Earth. Many scientists believe if that's the case, that life perhaps inevitably has evolved on some of them. And so the argument goes that if the environment is similar on those planets, then life would have evolved and adapted in the same ways. Some go so far to say even that beings very much like us, humanoidlike beings, would've evolved on those planets.
SIEGEL: You write about the three-spined stickleback fish. What wisdom do we gain from this species?
LOSOS: Well, the three-spined stickleback is another case of evolutionary convergence. In lakes in British Columbia, they have diverged into two types - one that lives on the bottom of a lake foraging in the mud in the bottom, the other in the open water catching little invertebrates. But what has happened is on six different lakes they have evolved into these two types that are indistinguishable from one lake to another. And in fact, on the University of British Columbia campus, they have developed an enormous complex of artificial ponds in which they have seeded them with sticklebacks to watch how they evolve over many generations.
SIEGEL: And when they sort out into open-water sticklebacks and bottom-feeding sticklebacks, at some point they become non-interbreeding different species of three-finned sticklebacks?
LOSOS: Well, the really interesting thing here is that, yes, in any one of those lakes, they adapt to the two different habitats. And eventually they become so that they don't interbreed with each other. However, if you put together the same type of fish from different lakes, even though they've independently adapted to those niches, they will interbreed with each other.
SIEGEL: That's amazing. So in effect, biologists at the University of British Columbia are creating evolution.
LOSOS: Yes. Yes. That's exactly it. To my mind, this is the most exciting advance in evolutionary biology - perhaps one of the most exciting advances in all of science - in the last few years, the realization that evolutionary change can occur not only very rapidly, but so rapidly that you can actually do experiments and expect to see an outcome in three to four years. This is something that Darwin got completely wrong.
I mean, Darwin was right about so many things. It is amazing. But he was completely wrong on the pace of evolution. He thought that evolution occurred so glacially slowly that it would take thousands of years to be able to detect it at all. Well, now that we know that evolution can occur very quickly, we can actually go out and do experiments in nature to test our ideas. And some of the experiments going on now are just extraordinary and providing incredible insight about the evolutionary process.
SIEGEL: Well, Jonathan Losos, thank you very much for talking with us about it and about your book.
LOSOS: Well, it's been my pleasure.
SIEGEL: Professor Losos' book is called "Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, And The Future Of Evolution."
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How Evolution Shapes Our Lives
by Jonathan B. Losos & Richard E. Lenski
Price at time of review: $39.50
396 pp.
Princeton University Press
Princeton, NJ
2016
ISBN: 9780691170398
Grade Level: College
Reviewed by Rita Hoots
Professor
Following the thread of Theodosius Dobzhanky’s statement that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution, it becomes imperative that the public become cognizant to its relevance in our lives and to understanding the impact of this vital force governing transformations in our world.
The editors of this book have selected 22 from the 107 chapters in the comprehensive topical reference The Princeton Guide to Evolution (2013). Articles dealing with modern evolutionary biology have been revised and updated by the leading academics to make this edition more accessible to modern society. The compact book is divided into five sections, starting with the basic biological foundations of defining evolution and looking at human evolution and the transmission of traits The section of health and disease covers aging, microbes, and the timely topic of antibiotic resistance. Looking at transformations in our world, chapters review the affects of agriculture on ecology, conservation efforts, and the impending problems posed by climate change. The perception of evolution in religion and by creationists is examined, and finally cultural evolution and the development of language is explored. In short, this edition serves as a basic guide for grasping both the fundamentals and the sweep of the evolutionary concept.
Review posted on 10/21/2016
Thursday, May 18, 2017
The Princeton Guide to Evolution by Jonathan B. Losos (Editor), David A. Baum (Editor), Douglas J. Futuyma (Editor), Hopi E. Hoekstra (Editor), Richard E. Lenski (Editor), Allen J. Moore (Editor), Cahterine L. Peichel (Editor), Dolph Schluter (Editor), Michael C. Whitlock (Editor) (Princeton University Press)
This is a synoptic survey of our still-advancing understanding of the Science of Evolution .. The 'autoevolution ' of this book is itself remarkable, as tight editing has drawn together contributions from more than one hundred individual authors into a unified whole. In short, the book is a timely and important one.Biology students will find this material helpful, and those with a desire to learn more about the history of life, genes, evolutionary processes, and the like might also find this a worthwhile title to peruse. A comprehensive guide to all aspects of evolution. Great for students and teachers of the subject."This comprehensive reference covers an enormous breadth of information on the major subjects and key concepts in evolutionary biologyThe list of international contributors consists of leading evolutionary biologists from a variety of academic institutions
The Princeton Guide to Evolution is a comprehensive, concise, and authoritative reference to the major subjects and key concepts in evolutionary biology, from genes to mass extinctions. Edited by a distinguished team of evolutionary biologists, with contributions from leading researchers, the guide contains some 100 clear, accurate, and up-to-date articles on the most important topics in seven major areas: phylogenetics and the history of life; selection and adaptation; evolutionary processes; genes, genomes, and phenotypes; speciation and macroevolution; evolution of behavior, society, and humans; and evolution and modern society. Complete with more than 100 illustrations (including eight pages in color), glossaries of key terms, suggestions for further reading on each topic, and an index, this is an essential volume for undergraduate and graduate students, scientists in related fields, and anyone else with a serious interest in evolution.
Explains key topics in some 100 concise and authoritative articles written by a team of leading evolutionary biologists
Contains more than 100 illustrations, including eight pages in color
Each article includes an outline, glossary, bibliography, and cross-references
Covers phylogenetics and the history of life; selection and adaptation; evolutionary processes; genes, genomes, and phenotypes; speciation and macroevolution; evolution of behavior, society, and humans; and evolution and modern society
Jonathan B. Losos is the Monique and Philip Lehner Professor for the Study of Latin America and professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University. David A. Baum is professor of botany and director of the J. F. Crow Institute for Evolution at the University of Wisconsin. Douglas J. Futuyma is Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University. Hopi E. Hoekstra is the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University. Richard E. Lenski is the John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor of Zoology at Michigan State University. Allen J. Moore is professor of genetics at the University of Georgia. Catherine L. Peichel is an associate member of the human biology and basic sciences divisions of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Dolph Schluter is professor of zoology and Canada Research Chair at the University of British Columbia. Michael J. Whitlock is professor of zoology at the University of British Columbia.
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Labels: . @stephendarori, . Stephen Darori, . Stephen Drus, .Israel Book Review, @israelbookreview, #IsraelBookReview, #stephendarori, #stephendrus, The Darori Foundation, The Princeton Guide to Evolution
Island Biogeography Revisited: an online experiment
Science
GrrlScientist
As an experiment in online book reading clubs, I will share a series of pieces about a group of scientists that is reading and discussing the book, Island Biogeography Revisited -- are you willing to join us?
Thu 9 Apr 2015 08.52 EDT
Last modified on Wed 20 Sep 2017 06.46 EDT
Darwin Research Centre, Galapagos Islands.
In the 1960s, the term “island biogeography” was coined by ecologists Robert H. MacArthur and E. O. Wilson, who wrote The Theory of Island Biogeography (1967, Princeton). This landmark book, which is still used today, describes a general mathematical theory that MacArthur and Wilson developed to predict the number of species that could exist on a newly created island. This one slim book -- with its clearly stated and easily understood goal -- transformed the science of biogeography, evolution and ecology as a whole, and is now widely applied to many conservation efforts, too.
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But that book was published more than forty-five years ago -- is it still relevant today? To assess the continuing impact of MacArthur and Wilson’s work, a follow-up book, The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited, was published. This book contains fifteen chapters written by prominent biologists who evaluate and demonstrate how the field of biogeography has extended and confirmed -- as well as challenged and modified -- MacArthur and Wilson’s original ideas.
I participate in the Biodiversity and Climate Research (Biodiversität und Klima - Forschungszentrum; BiK-F) science book club at the Senckenberg Museum. This group is comprised of working scientists, and it meets every two weeks to discuss chapter(s) in a book we’ve chosen to read. The book we’ve selected is The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited, edited by Jonathan B. Losos & Robert E. Ricklefs. (You can purchase this book from Princeton University Press or from Amazon [UK: hardcover/paperback/Kindle UK; US: hardcover/paperback/Kindle eTextbook].)
As an experiment, I plan to write a “book club” piece that I publish shortly after each meeting that provides an overview of the material in the assigned chapters, and an insider’s report of the ensuing discussion. You might think of it as an extended and serialised book review.
Our first meeting is 14 April and we will discuss the first two chapters. It is my hope that by sharing our little science book reading club here, some of you might be inspired to read along with us and to add your comments to the discussions. Even the publisher is interested!
Sign up for Lab Notes - the Guardian's weekly science update
Read more
I view this as an experiment in online book reading clubs, but I have no idea if this science book club series will be successful -- indeed, I am not sure how one might measure the success of this sort of thing. But you might enjoy this and it might inspire more ideas for how to make an online book club work.
NOTE (9 April 2015 at 1448): this piece was edited to remove a link to the “free” PDF of the book because, well, I didn’t realise it was paywalled. Apologies.
.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
The Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research (BiK-F) group is on twitter @BiK_F_ (and the Senckenberg Museum’s growing empire is also on twitter @Senckenberg)
When she’s not reading a book, GrrlScientist is very active on twitter @GrrlScientist and sometimes lurks on social media: facebook, G+, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited
open access
The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited. Jonathan B. Losos and Robert E. Ricklefs, eds. Princeton University Press, 2009. 494 pp., illus. $49.50 (ISBN 9780691136530 paper).
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David J. Currie
David J. Currie
[+] Author & Article Info
The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited is the fruit of a symposium held at Harvard in 2007 in honor of the 40th anniversary of the publication of Robert MacArthur and E. O. Wilson's The Theory of Island Biogeography (TTIB). The organizers of the symposium invited a who's who of community and island ecologists. Sixteen participants produced chapters for the book; the result is a very good overview of a wide body of work that draws inspiration from, but does not necessarily directly follow, TTIB. The text of this new work is accessible, readable, and often engaging. I was motivated to read it cover to cover, and even to buy another copy after I misplaced my first one. I have suggested the book to my new graduate students as a font of interesting ideas for their research proposals.
The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited could easily serve as the centerpiece of a graduate course, in part because of its very discussable shortcomings. The book begins with reviews of how island biogeography theory came to be (recounted by Wilson), then discusses subsequent tests of the theory (reviewed by Schoener and Lomolino and colleagues). Neither chapter explicitly states any conclusions, but Schoener's indicates that the bulk of the evidence is consistent with TTIB (the glass being fairly full). Laurence discusses fragmentation effects in nature, commenting that although TTIB may be a conceptual Mount Everest, it is “simplistic to the point of being cartoonish” (the glass having obvious emptiness).
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A second portion of the book (which is not explicitly organized in thematic sections) focuses on work that was inspired by ideas in TTIB. Notable among these is metacommunity theory. Hanski discusses metapopulation models beginning with TTIB and Levins's work from the same era, continuing through his own work. Chapters by Holt and by Terborgh examine trophic relationships on islands, going beyond TTIB's emphasis on species counting. A third part deals with community assembly. Simberloff and Collins review the notions of assembly rules and checkerboard distributions in a chapter redolent of the late 1970s (except for want of a companion chapter by Diamond). Hubbell contrasts predictions from neutral theory and from Tilman's R* theory, testing them against his Barro Colorado Island data (there is no matching piece from Tilman).
The lion's share of The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited is devoted to reviews of evolutionary effects on islands. Several chapters pertain to the dynamics of colonization, speciation, and hybridization—illustrated by the birds of the Galápagos (by the Grants, framed as an homage to “Ed Wilson the Naturalist”), birds of the Lesser Antilles (Ricklefs), as well as anoles of the Antilles and snails of the Galápagos (Losos and Parent)—or discuss islands more generally (Clegg, and Gillespie and Baldwin).
Although the chapters were generally quite good, I was disappointed by the book. First, there are no abstracts. Abstracts force authors to identify their central message. The book would have been more interesting and more useful if the authors had been expected to make an identifiable conceptual advance in their chapters. Second, in a book with this title, I thought I would see tests of and successors to TTIB. A classic MacArthur quote is: “To do science is to search for repeated patterns, not simply to accumulate facts” (from the preface to his Geographical Ecology). TTIB presented general patterns and then proposed a mechanism that made explicit predictions about the observed patterns (variation of richness with area and with isolation) and how the patterns should look under new circumstances (e.g., during habitat fragmentation or during initial colonization of an island). The resulting statistical models accounted for quite a lot of the geographic variation in species richness. Therefore, I expected to see assessments of the limitations of TTIB (e.g., that TTIB's scope is limited to particular archipelagos), and modified models that address those limitations (e.g., D. H. Wright's 1983 species-energy work). I thought I might see meta-analyses comparing the conditions where TTIB failed empirical tests with conditions where it passed, followed by more general models that address those limitations and failures.
However, this book contains strikingly little systematic examination of general patterns. Rather, there were often lists of processes that can affect species distributions (e.g., niche preemption, founder effects, sympatric speciation, etc.), followed by a supporting example or two (i.e., some accumulated facts). Evidence was very often presented to support, rather than test, ideas. In particular, given the emphasis on evolutionary processes, there was surprisingly little effort to statistically incorporate these into modifications of TTIB, or to assess to what extent variation in biotic assemblages among islands can be statistically related to differences in evolutionary processes, versus differences in contemporary environment. Only one chapter of this book seems to start explicitly with TTIB and further develop its concepts: Whittaker and colleagues extend TTIB to include island age as a factor influencing island richness.
My third reservation is philosophical. Vellend and Orrock, in the concluding chapter of the book, put their finger on it. Comparing the fields of community ecology and population genetics, they remark that community ecology developed in light of obvious patterns in nature (e.g., latitudinal variation in richness), whereas population genetics developed as a theoretical discipline in the absence of much data on allele frequencies. Thus, Vellend and Orrock say, “although population genetics appears to rest on a firmer theoretical foundation than community ecology, we are not actually any better at predicting broad scale patterns of genetic diversity than we are at predicting broad scale patterns in communities. If anything, the opposite is true.” But—and here's the rub—“the difference is that in population genetics this is not considered a short-coming given the coherent set of basic models that can be successfully tailored to meet the inherently contingent specifics of any particular case, whereas in ecology we are set up for disappointment when we hope for grand all-encompassing theories to make the contingencies disappear” (p. 453). Vellend and Orrock then propose an organizational structure for community ecology on the basis of population genetics.
This argument gets to the question of what science is supposed to do. On the one hand, if the purpose of science is to develop theories that predict the behavior of nature, then one may ask: What can we predict now, 40 years after TTIB, that we could not predict in its immediate wake? Dismayingly little, judging from this book. On the other hand, one may argue (as Vellend and Orrock seem to say, and plenty of other chapters in this book seem to do) that the purpose of science is to elucidate mechanisms that operate under at least some circumstances (e.g., in controlled experiments), and to provide a plausible example or two from nature to illustrate those mechanisms. Thus armed, one can sally forth to explain (a posteriori) the contingent specifics of particular cases. In this view, this revisitation of TTIB will be very satisfying. Even for die-hard predictionists (such as myself), The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited has a wealth of ideas whose general predictive ability begs testing.
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Book review: Improbable Destinies: How Predictable Is Evolution? by Jonathan Losos
We could simply be creatures of chance, suggests this study — just like the platypus
Review by Bryan Appleyard
Strange and unpredictable: the duck-billed platypus
Strange and unpredictable: the duck-billed platypus
DAVE WATTS/ALAMY
The Sunday Times, July 23 2017, 12:01am
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Let’s say that, 66m years ago, the monstrous asteroid that gouged out the hole we now call the Gulf of Mexico, thus ending the long reign of the dinosaurs, had, instead, narrowly missed our planet. The dinosaurs would have grazed on regardless and the tiny mammals racing between their giant feet would not have taken over the planet and evolved into us.
Would some other self-aware, highly intelligent being have still appeared? Many people think so. One paleontologist has suggested it would have been a dinosauroid with two legs, two arms, a big brain and, apart from some offputting lizard-like features, a very human aspect. Others have imagined it would look more like a bird with a long tail and a huge beak, but clever.
What if the asteroid that ended the dinosaurs had missed the planet?
The belief that we (or something much like us)were inevitable, given the conditions on Earth, is known as determinism. Its fiercest opponent was Stephen Jay Gould, whose 1989 book Wonderful Life argued that, if you could rerun the whole evolutionary history of life on Earth, random mutations and environmental accidents would ensure a different outcome every time. Gould was so brilliant and such a gifted writer that the case appeared to have been closed.
Far from it: in fact, the case has recently been bust wide open. That is the subject of this book. Jonathan Losos is professor of evolutionary biology at Harvard, but here he is definitely targeting the popular market. This makes for a pacey read through some complex material, though occasionally one does hear the flapping of chinos and polo shirts, the uniform of the genially patronising American academic. Never mind, on the whole it works.
The leading opponent of Gould’s view is the British paleontologist Simon Conway Morris, who argues for “convergent evolution” — the idea that different species will independently arrive at similar adaptations and that, therefore, evolution could, potentially, be predicted. So, if the asteroid missed, the smart lizard guy would appear as an inevitable adaptation to life on Earth.
But, it seemed, there was no way anybody could ever win this argument. Following Darwin, most people assumed that evolution was always slow, taking thousands, millions or billions of years to produce, say, the eye. This meant the science could not be proved by experimentation and prediction. Now, however, it has become clear that evolution can be blindingly fast and is, therefore, observable in the field and the lab.
For example, a brightly coloured population of guppies, those stars of the domestic fish tank, will swiftly evolve into dull-coloured nonentities when exposed to predators. The 150-year-old Park Grass experiment at Rothamsted has shown that plants evolve rapidly to adapt to changes in their environment. And those inadequates who get their jollies shooting big game are causing reduced antler size in deer and smaller or no tusks in elephants. Fish are also getting smaller because that’s the way to slip through trawler nets.
Fish-tank favourites: brightly coloured guppies swiftly turn dull when exposed to predators
Fish-tank favourites: brightly coloured guppies swiftly turn dull when exposed to predators
ALAMY
This is real evolution, changes at the level of the DNA, not some temporary behavioural response. And it matters to us. One of the most terrible threats to our way of life is the rise of antibiotic-resistant bugs. This is further evidence of rapid evolution. Staphylococcus (sometimes harmless, sometimes lethal) evolved resistance to Penicillin within a decade or so. Tetracycline, a treatment for infections from cholera to syphilis, generated resistant bugs within nine years. Resistance to Methicillin appeared within two years. We are, currently, running out of options.
The new study of rapid evolution may help. The tuberculosis bacterium, for example, is an extremely creative evolver of antibiotic resistance. But now we are working out the genetic roots of resistance and we have machines that can rapidly “read” the DNA code. We are beginning to identify the precise mutations that produce resistance. One day, maybe soon, we will be able to knock out these mutated genes and destroy the bug’s defences.
The bulk of the book consists of eager descriptions of the experiments that prove the existence of rapid evolution. Losos started out as a lizard specialist, so there are many reptile pursuits on Caribbean islands. There is also the astounding story, that will make patriotic hearts beat faster, of the plant experiment begun in 1843 by John Bennet Lawes on the family estate of Rothamsted in Hertfordshire. It continues to this day, a monument to the best of British science that has been revitalised by the discovery that what Lawes had seen was evolution in action.
The big question is: now that we can observe and experiment with evolution, can we find the answer to the Gould/Conway Morris conundrum about chance versus determinism in evolution? Losos keeps us in suspense, picking out examples of convergence and then casting doubt on them with clear evidence of pure chance. The best case is the LTEE (long-term evolution experiment), which started in 1988 in Michigan. This involves tracking the evolution of successive generations of the E.coli bacterium. In November last year, they had run through 66,000 generations.
It would take pages to explain this beautiful experiment but, basically, everything jogged along nicely, producing clear evidence of convergence, until generation 33,127 when the marvellously named scientist Zachary Blount strode into the lab and found one flask of E.Coli had turned cloudy. Essentially, this was because that one flaskful had evolved to eat something different and had reproduced massively as a result.
Fast adapter: the tuberculosis bacterium is quick to develop resistance to antibiotics
Fast adapter: the tuberculosis bacterium is quick to develop resistance to antibiotics
ALAMY
So everything converges until, one day, it doesn’t. This suggests Gould and Conway Morris might each be half right: much can be predicted but a few big, decisive things can’t. They just happen; they are what Nassim Nicholas Taleb would call black swans. All our deterministic narratives fall prey to these birds.
So, to return to lizard man, would something like us have appeared if that asteroid had missed? Losos sort of concludes no. About 100,000 years ago there were many hominids around, but only one human species now survives. When it comes to world-conquering guile, we have no competitors. We are a singularity, a being as strange and as unpredictable as the duck-billed platypus, for which Losos has a special affection. It is a creature born of chance that is so comical, so ridiculous and so unrelated to anything else that it defies all reason. Sound familiar? Check the mirror.
Clever duck
The platypus may seem ripe for mockery, but it is a remarkably sophisticated animal in many ways. That bill, for instance, is covered with tens of thousands of minute sensors — many of them sensitive to touch and able to detect changes in water pressure produced by the swish of a fish’s tail, the rest electroreceptors that can precisely locate food via the minute electrical charges their prey produce as they move.
Allen Lane £20 pp364
Read an extract on The Sunday Times website
Review: Improbable Destinies: How Predictable is Evolution? by Jonathan Losos
If it hadn’t been for that asteroid, would dinosaurs have evolved into intelligent human-like creatures, asks Tom Whipple
Tom Whipple
August 5 2017, 12:01am, The Times
What an evolved, intelligent dinosaur might look like
What an evolved, intelligent dinosaur might look like
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Sixty-five million years ago a theropod prowled lackadaisically past some ferns. Above its head a kilometres-wide asteroid was thundering towards the Earth. But in the jungle below, the dinosaur was unaware. It quizzically investigated a stream, then slumped down in some dappled shade for a sleep.
It was not to be. Travelling at 17km a second, the asteroid hit the outer reaches of the atmosphere and began to glow — brighter, and more violently. Startled, the theropod looked up to see a streak across the Cretaceous sky. It grew to an intensity greater than the Sun, temporarily blinding.
Then it dimmed and seconds later was gone, bouncing out of the atmosphere. After this near miss, the theropod at last got some rest — and perhaps dreamt of the large-craniumed, opposable-thumbed, pop-science writing dinosaur its descendants would become.
Jonathan Losos’s book is very, very loosely about what would have happened if the dinosaurs had not gone extinct. In one sense we owe our existence to that asteroid. With the dinosaurs gone, the reign of the mammal began — and one of those mammals became an animal that today is able to write counterfactual evolutionary histories predicated on the movements of rocks in space 65 million years ago.
But does intelligence itself owe its existence to that asteroid? Or was it always inevitable that a big-brained, thoughtful, pop-science-writing animal would emerge and the only thing left to chance was which genus of animal would sire a genius?
The latter, broadly, is the argument made by convergent evolutionists. Intuitively you would assume that evolution, a process driven by chance, results in chance outcomes. In the past few decades, however, an opposing view has prevailed, and there is compelling evidence that these convergent evolutionists may be correct. Across the world, evolution repeats itself — millions of random mutations all going in a predictable way.
Consider, for instance, the eye. We are familiar with its form from biology textbooks. A lens, a retina, a squishy liquid-filled package. From the octopus to the okapi, it doesn’t differ much. Yet that’s actually very strange because while the octopus, okapi and human share a common ancestor, that ancestor could not see. The eye developed independently, and in precisely the same way.
Another imagining of an evolved dinosaur
Another imagining of an evolved dinosaur
Or what about the ant and the termite? Both live in colonies, both communicate using pheromones, both tend underground fungus gardens. Yet they are descended from completely different evolutionary lines.
The moral is that although evolution’s material changes, its outcomes do not, and to some scientists this has become close to a general rule. Which brings us to a dinosaur named troodon, a type of theropod, which had one of the largest brain-to-mass ratios of its time.
In the 1980s, a Canadian palaeontologist called Dale Russell speculated on what would have happened if the asteroid had not hit, and natural selection had pushed the troodon towards an even larger brain. “Larger brains require larger braincases; bigger braincases usually are associated with a shortening of the facial region; heavier heads are more easily balanced by placement directly on top of the body; this in turn favours an upright posture, which means that a tail is no longer needed as a counterweight . . . and, voila,” writes Losos, a professor of evolutionary biology at Harvard, you have “what was termed inelegantly the ‘dinosaurid’, a green, scaly creature with an uncanny resemblance to a human, right down to the butt cheeks and fingernails”.
In other words humans — albeit not the kind of human you would necessarily get together with much before closing time — were inevitable.
To which the counter-argument is the duck-billed platypus. If evolution always comes up with the same answers to similar questions, then what on earth was the question being asked that resulted in a squat furry thing with venomous ankle spurs, webbed feet, electroreceptors and a duck’s bill?
On similar worlds in similar solar systems we would find the same range of animals
This strange egg-laying, flat-tailed creature was, says Losos, “an animal so confused that when the first specimens arrived in England at the end of the 18th century . . . scientists searched for hours in vain to locate the stitches by which crafty Chinese merchants must have assembled their hoax”.
So does evolution converge or does it diverge? The convergencists have used their findings to argue not just that dinosaurs could become humans, but that aliens could too; that on similar worlds in similar solar systems we would find the same range of animals. Does a planet have water? Well, then the creatures that swish through it probably have the streamlined snout of the dolphin or shark. And quite possibly are hunted by a clever, naked ape-like thing. The divergencists, meanwhile, would say this is anthropocentrism in the extreme.
The problem with such debates is that they are unanswerable. Science proceeds by experiment, and the only way to prove that evolution always converges is to create, say, two separate but identical dinosaur worlds, with and without apocalyptic asteroids, and see what happens over the next 100 million years. As Darwin himself put it: “We see nothing of these slow changes in progress until the hand of time has marked the lapse of ages.” Darwin, though, was wrong.
In a laboratory in California there are 12 vials. In each of those vials there is a population of bacteria that for each day of the past 28 years has been bothered by a scientist who oversees a daily glut of food then famine. Whenever he or she has done so, it has created what scientists call a “selection pressure”. The colonies would more reasonably consider it a regular and malevolent apocalypse.
Each of those days, for the bacteria, represents more than a century for humans. And in that time the initially identical bacteria have evolved — and done so identically. In each vial the bacteria have grown faster and larger to better survive the feast and famine. Papers were published on this as clear evidence of convergent evolution.
The duck-billed platypus, once thought to be a Chinese hoax
The duck-billed platypus, once thought to be a Chinese hoax
Then one day, 650,000 E. coli years on, a scientist removed a vial and saw that it was cloudy. It seemed to be full of bacteria even though by that time most should have starved. The team investigated. They prodded, they probed. They came to an astonishing conclusion. In this one vial, alone among the 12, the bacteria had evolved to make energy from a new source. In the battle against their arbitrary scientific overlords, thousands of famines on the bacteria had won. But only in one vial — elsewhere the convergence continues.
Argument solved then. Evolution produces freaks, chance mutations really do lead to random outcomes, hence humans are not inevitable. Yet it isn’t solved at all. What if all the vials will eventually learn a new way of metabolising and this one was just early?
And this is the one inevitable but unsatisfying aspect of this otherwise fascinating and beautifully written book. On a tour of the argument between convergencists and divergencists, Losos cannot really adjudicate — and is too sensible to try.
Convergent evolution clearly happens, as the octopus eye shows. It clearly also does not happen, as the platypus shows. Except all the individual bits of the platypus are seen elsewhere — just not in one package. So maybe that is convergence after all.
One assertion at least can be made. We now know dinosaurs had feathers. We also know that those that survived did keep evolving and became birds.
Here at least Losos does make a definite assertion. If the asteroid had not hit, we would not have scaly upright dinosaurs. “A super-sized brainy chicken would probably be closer to the mark.”
Improbable Destinies: How Predictable is Evolution? by Jonathan Losos, Allen Lane, 368pp, £20
Books, Et Al.
Book and media reviews from the journal Science, edited by Valerie Thompson.
Valerie Thompson
Valerie Thompson, Editor
Book Evolution
Inevitable or improbable? A biologist sheds light on the evolutionary likelihood of human existence
By Adrian Woolfson
July 25, 2017
Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution
Jonathan B. Losos
Riverhead Books
2017
384 pp.
Purchase this item now
In their seminal book Evolution and Healing, Randolph Nesse and George C. Williams describe the design of human bodies as “simultaneously extraordinarily precise and unbelievably slipshod.” Indeed, they conclude that our inconsistencies are so incongruous that one could be forgiven for thinking that we had been “shaped by a prankster.”
By what agency did this unfortunate state of affairs come into being, and how might we amend it? Gene editing and synthetic biology offer the possibility of, respectively, “correcting” or “rewriting” human nature, allowing us to expunge unfavorable aspects of ourselves—such as our susceptibility to diseases and aging—while enabling the introduction of more appealing features. The legitimacy of such enterprises, however, to some extent depends on whether the evolution of humans on Earth was inevitable.
If our origin and nature were deterministically programmed into life’s history, it would be hard to argue that we should be any other way. If, on the other hand, we are the improbable products of a historically contingent evolutionary process, then human exceptionalism is compromised, and the artificial modification of our genomes may be perceived by some as being less of an affront to the natural order. In his compelling book Improbable Destinies, Jonathan Losos addresses this issue, recasting previous dialogues in the light of an experimental evolutionary agenda and, in so doing, arrives at a novel conclusion.
Until recently, the evolutionary determinism debate focused on two contrary interpretations of an outcrop of rock located in a small quarry in the Canadian Rocky Mountains known as the Burgess Shale. Contained within the Burgess Shale, and uniquely preserved by as-yet-unknown processes, are the fossilized remains of a bestiary of animals, both skeletal and soft-bodied. These fossils are remarkable in that they appear to have originated in a geological instant 570 to 530 million years ago during the Cambrian. They comprise a bizarre zoo of outlandish body plans, some of which appeared to be unrepresented in living species.
In his 1989 book Wonderful Life, the Harvard biologist Stephen Jay Gould argued that the apparently arbitrary deletion of distinct body plans in the Cambrian suggests that life’s history was deeply contingent, underwritten by multiple chance events. As such, if the tape of life could be rewound back to the beginning and replayed again, it would be vanishingly unlikely that anything like humans would emerge again. The Cambridge paleontologist Simon Conway Morris, on the other hand, would have none of this.
Citing a long list of examples to illustrate the ubiquity of convergence—the phenomenon whereby unrelated species evolve a similar structure—Conway Morris claimed that the evolution of humanlike organisms would be a near inevitability of any replay. In his scheme, articulated in 2003 in Life’s Solution, nature’s deep self-organizing forces narrowly constrain potential evolutionary outcomes, resulting in a relatively sparse sampling of genetic space.
Losos closes the loop on this contentious debate, marshaling data from the burgeoning research area of experimental evolution. Unlike Darwin, who perceived the process of evolution to be imperceptibly slow and therefore inaccessible to direct experimentation, contemporary evolutionary biologists have realized that evolution can occur in rapid bursts and may consequently be captured on the wing.
Given that microbes have an intergenerational time of 20 minutes or less, in 1988, the evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski reasoned that the bacterium Escherichia coli would comprise the perfect model experimental system to study condensed evolutionary time scales. Bacteria could additionally be frozen, allowing multiple parallel replays to be run again and again from any time point in their history. Twenty-eight years and 64,000 bacterial generations later, he concluded that the history of life owes its complexity both to repeatability and contingency.
Losos and other investigators have demonstrated a similar degree of repeatability in the natural evolution of the Anolis lizard, three-spined sticklebacks, guppies, and deer mice. Importantly, however, when experimental populations evolve in divergent environments, novel outcomes are more commonly observed than convergence.
These experiments were not a replay of the tape of life in time so much as a replay in space, but the findings were surprising in that they emerged within a relatively short time frame—a far cry from what one might have expected would be necessary to falsify the predictability hypothesis.
Losos concludes that “both sets of forces—the random and the predictable … together give rise to what we call history.” With this, humans are humbled once again, cast firmly into the sea of ordered indeterminism. Although he does not attempt to use this as a justification for human genomic modification, Losos argues that the genetic principles underlying life’s multifarious convergent solutions might, among other things, be co-opted to rescue imperiled species.
About the author
The reviewer is the author of Life Without Genes (Flamingo, London, 2000).
Does evolution bring the same results no matter what?
Biologist Jonathan B. Losos finds clues about evolution by examining the legs of brown anole lizards. (KATHERINE FREY/THE WASHINGTON POST)
By Barbara J. King August 25, 2017
Barbara J. King is emerita professor of anthropology at the College of William and Mary. Her latest book is “Personalities on the Plate: The Lives & Minds of Animals We Eat.”
Evolutionary biologist Jonathan B. Losos has spent a lot of time on tropical islands chasing small lizards called brown anoles, lassoing them with waxed dental floss and measuring their legs. As it turns out, anole species that use broader surfaces to get around have evolved longer legs compared with their narrow-substrate counterparts. In “Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution,” Losos amusingly recounts the times during his research when he was outwitted by these “pea-brained” anoles or coped with surprises such as roaches lurking in his cereal box.
But Losos spins a serious science story through the lens of lizard legs, with remarkable skill. He reaches beyond the behavior of the plants and animals filling his pages to tackle a question central to today’s practice of evolutionary biology: “whether natural selection inevitably produces the same evolutionary outcomes or whether the particular events a lineage experiences — the contingencies of history — affect the end result.”
[The first animals evolved during the absolute worst time on Earth]
The revered figure of Harvard evolutionary biologist and science popularizer Stephen Jay Gould looms behind this question. Gould, who died in 2002, took a hard-line stance for contingency and against evolutionary predictability. Replay the tape of life, he famously wrote, and nothing would unfold in the same way it first had: We humans wouldn’t even be here. Too many tiny variables would cascade through the millennia to allow the same evolutionary pathway to occur twice.
“Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of evolution,” by Jonathan B. Losos (Riverhead)
At first, by offering abundant instances of convergent evolution under natural conditions, Losos veers toward an anti-Gouldian perspective. The caffeine molecule in coffee, tea and cacao, three plants not closely related, evolved independently. Eyes of humans and octopuses are “nearly identical” although their shared ancestry is a half-billion years back. In the Greater Antilles, anole lizards on four different islands — again, not close kin — carve up the habitat in the same ways, as do mouse-eared bats across different regions in many parts of the world.
Soon, Losos beautifully complicates this story. Species often fail to converge even when faced with similar selection pressures. Cape buffaloes’ horns, impalas’ long legs, porcupines’ spines and the projectile venom of the spitting cobra are all adaptations to sharing habitat with predators such as lions. An animal’s existing structure and physiology constrain what evolutionary pathways may be taken. As Losos reminds us, natural selection, lacking foresight, “won’t favor a detrimental feature just because it is an early step on a path leading to an ultimately superior condition.”
Dueling lists, offered either in support of or against evolutionary predictability, yield no definitive answer. How about experiments that test the question of evolutionary determinism directly? Here, “Improbable Destinies” really soars, achieving at times the pace and wow factor of thrill fiction.
From Darwin’s time until about 50 years ago, it had been thought that evolution occurred at such a slow pace that it would be impossible to field-test hypotheses relating to it. Losos takes some poetic license in suggesting that we now know evolution may operate “at light speed,” but from a perspective of eons of geological time, he’s not far wrong. Working in Trinidad in the 1970s, zoologist John Endler moved guppies from streams dense with pike cichlids, “a streamlined torpedo with teeth that makes its living eating guppies,” to other streams containing killifish, which take a far more lackluster approach to consuming guppies. In a mere two years, the guppies evolved from drab-colored with small spots to colorful with larger spots in response to the great lessening of predation pressure.
Losos mentions in passing “several potential harms” that come with relocating animals like this. Indeed, throughout the book scientists are shown relentlessly interfering with animals’ lives, as when the mortality of light- and dark-colored deer mice in Nebraska zooms up because they were moved around for an adaptation experiment. Animals routinely face all sorts of death pressures in the wild, of course; whole lizard populations were washed away by hurricanes during Losos’s research. When scientists intervene with apparent aplomb, however, ethical concerns deserve a fuller hearing.
[Are humans the main driver of human evolution?]
Whatever their pros and cons, from these experiments on numerous species, the take-home message became clear: Evolution can be rapid and, to some notable degree, predictable. So was Gould wrong? If we could rewind the tape of life, would evolution unfold again in much the same way? Settling for no easy answers, Losos adds layer upon layer of nuance as he shows just how challenging it is to answer this question conclusively. A laboratory experiment with E. coli run by Rich Lenski, now nearing its third continuous decade and involving more than 64,000 generations, encapsulates why. At the start, all the E. coli were genetically identical, meaning that when they were made to encounter new experimental conditions, mutation was the sole available pathway for evolutionary change. After 14 years, the data indicated that “faced with the same selective environment, populations independently evolved in the same way.” Then came the stunner: One population evolved an adaptation, the ability to feed on citrate as well as glucose in the presence of oxygen, that had apparently never occurred before. “So much for predictability and parallel evolution!” Losos exclaims.
It may take many generations for evolutionary unpredictabilities to show up, then. Both random and highly (though not completely) determined paths occur, and it’s scientists’ job to figure out the relative contributions of each, in each individual case.
Why does any of this matter outside of the science classroom? Knowledge of evolutionary pathways may help us fight the potential catastrophe of increased antibiotic resistance or design custom treatments for cystic fibrosis patients who suffer from bacterial rampages in their lungs. Maybe it can even help us think through animals’ and plants’ responses to global warming patterns or the potential forms extraterrestrial life might take. Yet science need not be applied to our own well-being to matter. With an ideal combination of clarity and comedy, scholarly caution and infectious enthusiasm, Losos shows us how evolutionary biology opens up for each of us the glorious workings of our world, with surprises around every corner.
Improbable Destinies
Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution
By Jonathan B. Losos
Riverhead. 368 pp. $28
Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution
By Jonathan B. Losos Riverhead Books 384 pp.
Reviewed by Jennifer Bort Yacovissi
August 30, 2017
A captivating look at dueling theories on the origin and adaptability of species.
For those of us who aren’t evolutionary biologists, it may come as a surprise to learn that there is such a field as experimental evolution. (Is now the time to admit not knowing about evolutionary biologists, either?)
This and other surprises both fascinating and a bit discomfiting await the non-expert reader of Jonathan Losos’ Improbable Destinies, a thoroughly accessible analysis of whether evolution is one big crapshoot or rather mundanely predictable. No spoilers here, but the evidence presented on both sides makes for some thought-provoking reading.
Losos made his early bona fides as the Lizard Guy, doing lots of undergraduate, graduate, and later fieldwork with anoles in the Bahamas (he agrees that it’s a tough life but somebody’s got to live it).
He is now a professor of biology and director of the Losos Laboratory at Harvard, and Curator of Herpetology at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. Being a university professor, he publishes often in scholarly journals, but also writes for a popular audience in places like the New York Times.
The great proponent of evolution as an unpredictable and unrepeatable series of happenstance is Stephen Jay Gould, who posited that you could hit the rewind button on evolution and replay it infinitely and never get the same outcome twice.
This is a concept known as “contingency,” in which any outcome is dependent upon the tiniest factors all lining up in exactly the right sequence. Yet much of the evolutionary record — as well as plenty of extant species, including those anoles — illustrates the concept of convergent evolution, where similar environmental pressures in disparate locales give rise to virtually identical evolutionary adaptations.
(Personally, I am crushed to learn that I missed out on the “Shetland pony-sized” pigmy elephants that apparently evolved independently on islands around the world, “some recent enough to have coexisted with modern humans: Malta, Corsica, St. Paul off the coast of Alaska; Flores, where they lived with Komodo dragons; even the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California.” What?)
On the other hand, there are plenty of examples of once-and-done species that evolved a single time and remain unique, including most of New Zealand’s fauna (where mammals never evolved), a good chunk of Australia’s, and, lest we forget, us.
The Gould Camp would say we’re a one-in-infinity outcome, while others, like Dale Russell, theorize that, even if that asteroid had missed Earth and mammals had never gotten their evolutionary shot, it’s completely plausible that evolution and selection would have favored dinosaurs that were big-brained and bipedal, eventually resulting in — voila! — the dinosauroid.
Evolutionary biologists are probing the “contingency vs. determinism” theories through both lab and field experiments to assess evolution’s general predictability. One of them, Rich Lenski, took Gould’s “replay the tape” challenge literally, establishing a long-term evolutionary experiment (LTEE) with E. coli that started in 1988 and continues today through tens of thousands of generations.
By starting with a single parent strain and growing 12 separate colonies under identical conditions for years, Lenski was seeing whether they all behaved identically. The findings over time from this and other LTEEs offer some surprises but generally show significant predictability.
While many of us tend to think of evolution as an eons-long process, we also intuitively understand that rapid genetic changes give rise to such organisms as antibiotic-resistant bacteria and pesticide-resistant insects.
Fast changes happen in larger creatures, too. Losos introduces us to many examples of field-based experiments in evolution that demonstrate just how quickly natural selection works to change the make-up of a given population.
His long-running work with anoles had already documented examples of consistently convergent evolution in which nearly identical lizards evolved on different islands to fill nearly identical ecological niches.
His later work took that a step farther and put genetically similar anoles on tiny, lizard-free islands to see what would happen. When the populations did not get wiped off the map by hurricanes, they evolved in ways the research team found to be fairly predictable.
In Trinidad, experimental evolution fieldwork with guppies demonstrated how predation pressure affects coloration. Again and again, experiments showed that, under low predation, male guppies quickly became more brightly colored, apparently something that held appeal for female guppies. Under high predation, issues of attractiveness were thrown out the evolutionary window as duller colors helped males to survive long enough to mate. (Better dull but alive than sexy but dead, as evolutionary biologists like to say.)
The speed with which these changes occur — within a few years or even just a few seasons — is pretty stunning, but it’s also a little worrisome how the researchers choose to jigger around with wildlife, introducing species where they weren’t, including adding predators into the mix where they previously hadn’t been.
Losos discusses this somewhat, arguing that the introductions mimic what often happens naturally. Still, it sure feels like we’ve seen this “Man Monkeys with Nature: Bad Outcomes Ensue” movie before.
So why do we care about evolutionary predictability, anyway? As Losos points out in discussing diseases such as cystic fibrosis, any level of predictability is better than none if it gives us hint in advance about how these diseases might shape-shift in the face of drug therapies.
All this goes to presume that a reader is willing to face the concept of evolution in the first place. Losos notes that the National Science Foundation asks evolutionary biologists, when writing up the description of their funded grants for public release, to avoid the “E” word so as not to trigger an ugly backlash.
Indeed, it seems that however it is we humans came about, we still haven’t evolved a consistently open mind or a thicker skin.
Jennifer Bort Yacovissi’s debut novel, Up the Hill to Home, tells the story of four generations of a family in Washington, DC, between the Civil War and the Great Depression. Jenny is a member of PEN/America and the National Book Critics’ Circle, and writes and reviews regularly for the Independent as well as the Historical Novels Review of the Historical Novel Society.
Book review: ‘Improbable Destinies’ by Jonathan Losos
How predictable is evolution?
Improbable DestiniesThe late Stephen Jay Gould more than once observed that, were it possible to roll back time and re-run evolutionary history, we would most likely end up with very different results. Minor differences in circumstances can lead to very different evolutionary pathways.
Others, most notably Simon Conway Morris, hold that evolution is far more predictable than Gould would have had us believe. As evidence, they cite the interesting phenomenon of convergent evolution, where different species evolve strikingly similar features in similar circumstances. A classic example is the similar body shapes of dolphins, sharks, ichthyosaurs, and (at more of a stretch) penguins: these predators’ ‘designs’ enable them to move quickly under water. If mammals, fish, ichthyosaurs, and birds evolved such similar shapes for moving at speed in the same environment, the argument goes, evolution must, to some extent, be predictable.
Those who maintain that evolution is more predictable than we might suppose sometimes go so far as to claim that upright, bipedal, intelligent life was almost inevitable on Earth. Had it not been for that pesky asteroid, they say, the world would now, quite possibly, be being ruled by dinosaurian, rather than mammalian, humanoids. This despite the fact that, as far as we know, upright, bipedal, intelligent dinosaurs failed to evolve in the 180-million years that dinosaurs actually did rule the earth.
Jonathon Losos's interesting book sets out to explore both the phenomenon of convergent evolution, and the possibility of performing experiments to assess evolutionary predictions. In the first part of the book, he describes many examples of convergent evolution. In subsequent sections, he describes experiments in the wild, and in more controlled environments, to determine whether the accuracy of various evolutionary predictions can be tested.
Although convergent evolution is a genuinely fascinating phenomenon, it is considerably less remarkable when the species in question are closely related. When presented with similar environmental challenges, is it really at all surprising when closely related species evolve similar solutions? Evolution can only tinker with what is already there; how many fundamentally different tweaks can be made to closely related lizards, for example, to help them evade a new predator? In fairness to Losos, he makes this point more than once, but, to this non-expert at least, it seemed as if more might have been made of it. There is a world of a difference between two species of stickleback, to cite another example, evolving brighter colours in the absence of predators, and dinosaurs evolving into intelligent humanoids. Even if small-scale convergent evolution of closely related species is common, extrapolating to claim that the evolution of intelligent humanoids is almost inevitable is another thing entirely.
Sensibly, Losos doesn't spend too much time examining arguments about putative humanoid dinosaurs—although he does eventually make his own position clear. This book is primarily about the experiments: how scientists have begun to test evolutionary predictions, and to assess how particular examples of convergent evolution come about. Both of which strike me as far more interesting and useful than coming up with untestable hypotheses about where dinosaurs might have gone next.
An entertaining book on an interesting subject.
Buy from Amazon.co.uk
Buy from Amazon.com
Learning from lizards: St. Louis native studies evolution in real time
By Jane Henderson St. Louis Post-Dispatch Aug 11, 2017 (0)
Thank a cranky reptile for helping set a St. Louis boy on the road to Harvard.
Jonathan B. Losos went from carrying plastic dinosaurs to school to begging his parents for a pet caiman, those cousins of alligators that in the early 1970s could be bought in a neighborhood pet store.
“I had to wear ski gloves so I wouldn’t get bit,” he says.
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Improbable Destinies
“Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution”
By Jonathan B. Losos
Published by Riverhead, 368 pages, $28
Undeterred, Losos kept two caimans in a horse trough in the backyard of his family’s Ladue home. During the winter, the scaly chompers were moved to the basement, outfitted with a plastic swimming pool and sun lamp.
In his new book, Losos writes that he got the idea from an episode of “Leave It to Beaver,” when Wally and the Beave hid a baby alligator in the bathroom.
At least the pre-adolescent Losos asked his parents. And because they were friends with Charles Hoessle, then deputy director of the St. Louis Zoo, they queried the professional herpetologist about what he thought. He thought it a superb idea.
“My mother was stuck, and soon our basement was full of all manner of reptile,” Losos writes. “I was on my way to my own career in the field.”
In fact his mother, Carolyn Losos, felt sorry for the single caiman and got a second one so it had company. But she drew the line at snakes.
Now a professor, researcher and curator of herpetology at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, Losos, 55, tells a few stories about himself in “Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution.” He’ll talk more about his book Thursday at St. Louis County Library.
An expert in evolutionary biology, he writes accessibly about the field today.
In short, Darwin notwithstanding, scientists can observe evolution as it happens. And it can happen quickly. It doesn’t take millennia as the great Victorian believed.
“You can see evolution with bacteria in a matter of days,” Losos says.
With guppies, a couple of years are enough to see them evolve: Research has shown that male guppies not threatened by predators soon develop more color, such as blue and iridescent spots.
Fish exposed to polluted rivers have evolved so they can live there. And wild elephants may even be changing to favor smaller tusks — a possible result of hunters’ poaching the magnificent beasts for ivory.
Most of these cases and more are described in “Improbable Destinies,” an interesting title because some of the examples seem quite probable. Others, however, are curious and perhaps unknowable — for instance, would humans have evolved if an asteroid hadn’t wiped out dinosaurs millions of years ago?
Beyond speculation
Evolutionary biology is like a detective story, with researchers looking at historic clues, Losos writes.
But today’s scientists also use lab experiments, DNA sequencing and fieldwork to learn about evolution: “Indeed, with the flood of genetic data now available for so many different species, our understanding of evolutionary relationships is advancing by leaps and bounds, producing a much firmer grasp on the evolutionary tree of life.”
It was only 1980 when a study of guppies was published that helped show scientists that evolutionary biology could be an experimental science in natural settings.
Guppies in Trinidad have inspired several scientists, and Losos writes about the studies in detail. Most of his book is about a variety of researchers, but the chapter about lizards, particularly brown anoles, is much his own and is a great example of speedy evolution and what biologists call “convergence.” That means that similar species in different places (without interbreeding) evolve some of the same traits.
For the lay reader, one of the most amusing parts of his story is how Losos catches lizards to measure their legs and look at other attributes — such as the large, sticky toe pads that allow some to run up slick, vertical slopes like green or brown Spider-Men.
The scientist uses a fishing rod with a loop at the end made out of dental floss (preferably waxed). He approaches the anoles in the wild slowly, then with a quick flick snares the subject around the neck with the dental floss noose. It tightens but doesn’t hurt the lizards, which have strong necks, he says.
What Losos found was that on various Caribbean islands, separate communities of lizards evolved in similar ways without any contact. Some that lived closer to the ground had longer legs to run quickly over wide surfaces. Others, which lived up higher on narrow twigs, had shorter legs to grasp small branches more easily.
Losos and colleagues X-rayed lizard legs to get precise measurements, then returned them to the exact place where they were caught. Much work was done on the islands, but some lizard Olympics were also held in labs to study how quickly the mini-athletes moved on various surfaces.
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ae ho jonathan losos02
Illustrations from "Improbable Destinies" by Jonathan Losos
When talking to scientists about the work, he writes, sometimes pesky botanists ask whether the leg changes actually showed genetic change, or could lizards born on islands with slim vegetation simply have grown shorter legs? (The question refers to “phenotypic plasticity,” such as plant growth that responds strongly to different conditions.)
Losos and his colleagues studied the research. He writes about how human weightlifters have thicker arm bones, “a plastic trait” affected by behavior. Those musclebound subjects don’t, however, have children who inherit thicker arm bones. And some of the lizards’ bones were longer, a trait that studies on exercise usually didn’t explain.
Still, Losos did more work in the lab with lizard leg growth and found that, indeed, a small amount of the growth could be attributed to phenotypic plasticity. But he concluded that evolved genetic change was “likely responsible” for most of it, and he believes that in the next few years researchers will identify the relevant genes involved.
In 1997, Losos’ studies were reported in The New York Times, which wrote that “a remarkable experiment with lizards in the Bahamas has now shown that evolution moves in predictable ways and can occur so rapidly that changes emerge in as little as a decade or so.”
Dr. Douglas J. Futuyma, an evolutionary biologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, was quoted saying the study was “distinctive and exciting and one that will be cited for many years to come.”
Nature and nurture
Losos says work in the Bahamas isn’t quite as paradisiacal as it sounds. For one thing, hurricanes occasionally wiped out his lizard subjects (some communities amazingly recovered, though, when their eggs survived hours underwater). When not traveling, during the school year, he lives in the Boston area near Harvard University. His wife, Melissa, and two cats remain in their Ladue home, where he spends summers.
One of his favorite places to visit is actually Australia, which has great biodiversity and his favorite animal, the duckbill platypus. At age 7, Losos was angry when his parents, Joseph and Carolyn Losos, went to Australia without him (they did bring him back a stuffed toy platypus).
In fact, here it might be pertinent to note that although Losos seemed to be born interested in reptiles, his environment nurtured his hobby: He grew up in a family that traveled extensively, and his science teachers at Ladue’s high school gave him a great education, he says.
Joseph Losos, a graduate of Harvard University, is a retired investment adviser and a commissioner for the St. Louis Zoo; he has also written book reviews for the Post-Dispatch. Carolyn Losos, a longtime activist in many St. Louis organizations, such as Focus St. Louis, is on the executive committee of the Missouri Botanical Garden and is chairwoman of Arts & Faith St. Louis.
As much as environment plays a role in development, biologists can’t always explain, though, whether it is the deciding factor in evolution.
That platypus, for example is a one-off animal — an “evolutionary singleton” despite living in streams and environmental conditions that can be found in other countries. (It does, though, have attributes that other animals have, so Losos writes that it is both “a paragon and a repudiation of convergence, evolutionarily unique, but a composite of convergent traits.”)
“Who would have predicted the duckbill platypus?” Losos says, alluding to the book’s title, “Improbable Destinies.”
Other evolutionary singletons include chameleons, kiwis and humans, all of which are unlikely to have evolved elsewhere (including other planets). Losos thinks, in fact, that if an asteroid had not eliminated dinosaurs, there would not be today’s homo sapiens. Variations on a “dinosauroid” have been proposed, a creature that evolved with a big brain, feathers, a tail and hands.
Speculations may not make the case for today’s study of evolution. But there are other examples of practical applications. In particular, the study of how microbes can so easily evolve to evade antibiotics and pesticides.
If scientists pinpoint important ways bacteria and viruses evolve, they may find techniques to keep microbes from foiling public health efforts. As Losos says:
“It turns out evolution is important in the world today.”
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Jonathan B. Losos
Jonathan B. Losos
Jonathan B. Losos
When • 7 p.m. Thursday
Where • St. Louis County Library, 1640 South Lindbergh Boulevard
How much • Free
More info • 314-994-3300
Tags
Jonathan Losos Evolutionary Biology Carolyn Losos St. Louis Zoo Reptile Lizard Joseph Losos Louis County Library Harvard's Museum Of Comparative Zoology Harvard University Charles Hoessle Jane Henderson Zoology Biology
IMPROBABLE DESTINIES: How Predictable is Evolution? by Jonathan Losos
Written by Jon Wright Published in Books
Allen Lane; £22 (hardback)
Allen Lane; £22 (hardback)
13 Sep
2017
Convergence has long been a talking point within evolutionary science. There are many examples of different animals and plants developing similar traits and characteristics when confronted with comparable challenges and environments.
It can be very tempting to move from this observation of overlapping adaptation to the conclusion that evolution has followed a predictable, even deterministic course.
Others have laid stress on the concept of contingency. They argue that the tiniest event was capable of sending evolution down an entirely different path and that predictability is the last word we should apply to the chaotic story of natural history.
Until recently, advocacy of either position has largely rested on looking backwards from the range of flora and fauna we now have, ‘compiling lists’ of adaptations that support one case or the other, and engaging in thought experiments. As Jonathan Losos explains, scientists are now able to test their hypotheses directly. Evolution does not always ‘plod along at a snail’s pace.’ Adaptations can manifest themselves ‘quickly enough to document during the course of a five-year research grant’ and we are able to ‘study evolution as it occurs, right before our eyes.’
Losos explores the pioneers of this work and takes us on a fascinating tour of the research being conducted around the world: from those who measure the lengths of lizards’ legs to those who study microbes in the laboratory. This engagingly written and always even-handed book tells us a great deal about a world in which human and octopus eyes are ‘nearly indistinguishable’ but which has also been shaped by chance and unpredictable chains of causality. ‘Evolution repeats itself sometimes,’ Losos concludes, ‘but often it doesn’t.’ The powerful engine of natural selection and the ‘flukes of history’ have both played their part.
Click here to purchase Improbable Destinies by Jonathan Losos via Amazon
Improbable Destinies: An interview with Jonathan B. Losos
Jonathan B. Losos with his favourite research subject: the green anole
Jonathan B. Losos is an evolutionary biologist, currently at Harvard University. He is best known for his research on speciation in Caribbean anoles, a genus of iguanian lizards. Previously, he has authored Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree: Ecology and Adaptive Radiation of Anoles. His latest book, Improbable Destinies: How Predictable is Evolution? is an incredibly enjoyable romp through evolutionary biology, examining the phenomenon of convergent evolution (i.e. the process by which different organisms have evolved the same or similar traits independently over time), and asks the question: how repeatable is evolution really? After reading this book recently (see also the review I left for the book) I contacted Jonathan to talk some more convergent evolution with him.
1. As a biologist, I can understand your fascination with convergent evolution. But to introduce yourself to the readers, what drew you to study this one topic out of all the fascinating aspects of evolution? Was this interest there from the beginning, or did you chance on it as your research progressed?
I’ve been interested in convergence ever since I learned about evolution because convergence of species living in similar environments is such a great demonstration of the power of natural selection. However, when I conducted my doctoral work on Caribbean Anolis lizards, I truly became fascinated by the phenomenon.
2. In your preface, you write how your PhD project on lizard diversification in the Caribbean supported ideas on convergent evolution. Right after writing up your thesis, Gould published his book Wonderful Life, in which he stressed the importance of contingency, arguing that evolution is unpredictable. You write you were taken with his book. How did you go about reconciling Gould’s views with your own?
Evolutionary biology is unlike most sciences in that it is a historical science. We can’t just do a key experiment or derive an equation and solve the problem. Rather, like detectives, we have to build the best case to understand what happened in the past. In addition, as Ian Malcolm said in Jurassic Park, life finds a way. In fact, evolution occurs in myriad different ways – almost any way of evolving you can imagine has occurred somewhere, some time. In this way, evolution is an inductive science – we can’t derive general rules for first principles; rather, we have to go out in nature and develop many case studies. Only in that way can we recognize the general patterns from the interesting exceptions.
It is in this light that I reconciled my one research on Anolis lizards, which indicated that evolution has travelled very much the same course four times on the different islands of the Greater Antilles (the large islands of the Caribbean), with Gould’s ideas that evolution, for the most part, is unpredictable and unrepeatable. I considered the Anolis situation to be one of the exceptions, fascinating, but out of the ordinary.
3. Part two of your book describes a plethora of field studies, including your own work on Anolis lizards, which by and large show that evolution is repeatable. Some people, botanists especially, have raised the objection that such findings could also come about by phenotypic plasticity. You have addressed this objection yourself experimentally and found that phenotypic plasticity only plays a limited role. Have others done the same, and is this something that is routinely considered and excluded as a possible explanation in this kind of research?
Phenotypic plasticity – the ability of genetically identical individuals to produce different phenotypes when exposed to different environmental conditions – has long been known. However, until recently, it was mostly considered to be noise in the system, non-adaptive phenomena that mostly served to prevent natural selection from producing evolutionary change (the reason being that natural selection might favor one variant, but if different variants in a species were genetically identical, then selection wouldn’t lead to any evolutionary change). However, in recent years we have realized that plasticity may be an important part of the evolutionary process. Although phenotypic variation (i.e., variation in traits such as anatomy, physiology) among individuals in a population may not be genetically based, the ability of a species to produce different phenotypes in different conditions is itself a genetically based trait that may evolve adaptively. Thus, species may evolve to exhibit great phenotypic variation as a response to living in many different environments. As a result, the amount of research on phenotypic plasticity has skyrocketed in the last two decades.
Improbable Destinies
4. Towards the end of Part Two, you point out another weak point of most field experiments. They generally start off with genetically related populations and so are likely to be predisposed to generate parallel evolutionary responses. Furthermore, statistical analyses might filter out the exceptions to the rule. Has experimental work by now moved on to using genetically dissimilar starting populations to investigate if convergent evolution is powerful enough to funnel different populations towards the same evolutionary outcome?
I wouldn’t say that this is a weak point of field experiments. Rather, it is a consequence of the hypothesis that is being tested. If you want to understand why guppies evolve to be more colourful in the absence of predators, then the appropriate experiment is to create multiple replicate populations of guppies in different conditions and see what happens. But, as I wrote in the book, we would expect very similar, closely-related populations to evolve similar adaptive responses to the same questions. One approach would be to conduct parallel experiments on many different species of fish to see the extent to which they adapt in similar ways (or in differing ways). Right now, I’m unaware of anyone doing this. However, different researchers sometimes ask the same question with different species, and this is the most likely way we will be able to address this question.
5. Part Three of your book looks at long-term laboratory experiments with bacteria. It seems here too, results initially suggested convergent evolution is the rule. Until exceptions starting cropping up on the longer term. Does the answer to the question whether evolution is repeatable depend on the timescale over which you look? Are we too focused on the short-term if we conclude that convergent evolution is the rule, rather than the exception?
That’s a keen observation. In Rich Lenski’s Long-Term Evolution Experiment, the story after 14 years was that evolution is pretty repeatable. Then, 30,000+ generations into the experiment, one of 12 experimental lines evolved a very different adaptation, one that still hasn’t been matched in the other 11 lines after another 14 years. So, yes, the longer one conducts a study, the greater the chance that rare, unique adaptations will occur (and we must remember that 30,000 generations are a drop in the evolutionary bucket). On the other hand, as Rich Lenski himself says, if the LTEE is continued long enough – maybe for 300,000 generations – then perhaps the other 11 populations will discover the new adaptive solution as well. So, yes, definitely, these studies need to be continued much longer. Most studies today, LTEE’s fame and influence notwithstanding, are much shorter in length (note: Loses and Lenski edited the book How Evolution Shapes Our Lives. ed.).
6. You conclude your book by saying that in the short term evolution is predictable, but that the world of biological possibilities is a vast one, and that in the long term, chance events have had a large impact. Given the many books dedicated to the topic of convergent evolution, and the way it speaks to people’s imagination, do you think we have overestimated the importance of this mechanism? Are we too keen on seeing patterns where there are none?
Well, we need a bit of historical perspective on this question. Until recently, we thought of convergent evolution as relatively rare. Great examples of the power of natural selection, worthy of being in biology textbooks, but not at all common. Now, thanks to the work of Simon Conway Morris and others, we realize that convergence is much more pervasive than we used to believe. This has been a valid contribution to our understanding of evolution. Nonetheless, some workers have gone too far, in my estimation, in emphasizing the importance and prevalence of convergent evolution. It is a common and important aspect of evolution, but it is not the only story.
Improbable Destinies is available to order from NHBS
Author LeonPosted on 4th December 2017Categories InterviewTags author interview, Bestsellers, ecology, evolution, Evolutionary Biology, Reptiles, Top Titles
Improbable Destinies - Jonathan Losos ****
August 05, 2017
There's always a danger when a science author puts themselves at the heart of their book that it can come across as 'Me, me, me!' - but Jonathan Losos has a very amiable personal style that gives the impression of having a chat with the author over a beer - and some of the best parts of the book are those that talk about Losos's own work.
The topic here - whether evolution inevitably tends to produce particular biological approaches given an environmental niche - is an interesting one, so the combination of the writing style and the topic make the book well worth reading, but there are some drawbacks, particularly with the first 150 pages or so. Arguably these suffer rather from the 'Is it a book or an article?' syndrome - there really isn't enough going on in them. What we are told is that often there will be convergence on similar biological solutions, but equally sometimes you'll get an oddity (think duckbilled platypus). The vast majority of those 150 pages involve going through many examples of both possible outcomes, making the reader inclined to yell 'Okay, I get it! Move on!'
Things get much better when Locos tells us about his own attempts in experimental evolution - one of the central threads of the book, that when ideas moved from Darwinian evolution over eons to the possibility of very quick adaptation, it was possible to put evolution to the test experimentally over periods of years. Cleverly, Locos picked up on a pre-existing experiment looking at something totally different that had involved starting lizard colonies on small islands. He was able to experiment with their development and adaptation to environmental issues and show that the populations converged on similar solutions (at least until population after population was wiped out by a hurricane).
This increased level of interest continues to a degree when we get onto other people's experiments with evolution, though again we get something of a repetition problem. The trouble is, I think, partly that Losos is so immersed in his subject that he assumes we will find every detail fascinating too, and that science requires lots of boring repetition to establish a theory. This doesn't necessarily make for engaging reading, and a good science writer has to get a feel for when to use a few examples rather than plodding through endless detail as a scientist would expect to do.
Despite these issues (you can always skip a bit), I repeatedly come back to the warm, approachable Locos style and the genuinely interesting (even to a non-biologist) aspects of how much evolution will tend to converge on similar solutions to environmental pressures, but how much novelties will also tend to arise - meaning the answer to the old Stephen Jay Gould 'Replay life's tape' idea is that sometimes it will be very similar, sometimes it won't. Incidentally, the blurb suggests this focuses on humans and whether life on other planets would end up fairly humanoid - that is certainly mentioned in the text, but it's far more about lizards and the like.
This is a book that deserves to be widely read.
Convergence or parallelism?: Kevin Padian at Nature on Jonathan Losos’ Improbable Destinies
August 22, 2017 Posted by News under Convergent evolution, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
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Integrative biologist Kevin Padian reviews Improbable Destinies: Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution by Jonathan B. Losos at Nature. He likes it but with quite a few qualifications:
Early in Jonathan Losos’s Improbable Destinies, the narrative goes off the rails. Losos sets up the problem of historical contingency in evolution by repeating the story that 66 million years ago, at the end of the Cretaceous period, an asteroid smacked into Earth, killing off the dinosaurs and paving the way for mammalian success. Had the asteroid missed, he writes, dinosaurs would have continued their domination and we humans might never have evolved.
The problem is much evidence has come to light in recent years that he dinosaurs were declining anyway and the mammals were doing reasonably well.
Note: There is an excerpt from the book at ScienceFriday.
Nevertheless, Improbable Destinies is deep, broad, brilliant and thought-provoking. Losos explores the meaning of terms such as fate, chance, convergence and contingency in evolution. Why do similar solutions — morphological, genetic and molecular — crop up again and again? He became intrigued by these questions when, as a student, he began to study the Caribbean Anolis lizards, following groundbreaking work by ecologist Thomas Schoener. These lizards inhabit a great range of island sizes and habitats, and tend to evolve similar adaptations and roles in similar circumstances. However, species on different islands that resemble each other aren’t each other’s closest relatives. Why not?
Why not indeed? Padian has some thoughts on this type of convergence:
Many call this convergence; I prefer the term parallelism for closely related lineages. ‘Convergence’ is appropriate for reinvention in very different groups — the superficially similar wings of birds and pterosaurs, or the elongated grub-seeking fingers of the aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) and striped possum (Dactylopsila trivirgata). We can catalogue examples all day, but is there any real theory of convergence? We cannot assert that some lineages are ‘fated’ to converge on these features. More.
Actually, hardly anyone asserts that convergence is “fated”; the problem is that it isn’t very Darwinian. Padian is president of the National Center for Science Education, which possibly accounts for the slam at Lamarck that immediately follows: “Biological ideas of determinism went out with Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in the late eighteenth century.”
As to a theory of convergence, it would be nice to study convergence much more before attempting one: How do large amounts of complex, specified information that cannot have evolved randomly within the life of this universe (Darwinism = natural selection acting on random mutations) duplicate themselves in widely different life forms? If we knew how, it might be easier to predict whether and when.
See also: New book: Evolution happens more quickly than we think If all “evolution” meant was variations in finch beaks and lizards, this book might be the answer. But let’s not kid ourselves.
and
Evolution appears to converge on goals—but in Darwinian terms, is that possible?
In the light of evolution: essays from the laboratory and field
Reviewed by Michelle Tseng
Jonathan Losos, eds 2011. Roberts and Company Publishers.
Author information ► Copyright and License information ►
My job requires me to read and critique papers in evolutionary biology almost every day, so it's understandable to say that seldom do I want to spend my evenings reading more evolutionary biology. This book is the rare exception. In ‘In the light of evolution…’, Jonathan Losos has assembled a remarkably accessible, highly readable, informative and entertaining series of 17 essays by prominent evolutionary biologists, historians, science writers and paleontologists. Most essays include background on how the author became interested in their field, a discussion of the main findings of their work so far, and a summary of where they expect their research to go in the future. However, while the reader is given a comprehensive overview of several key study systems in evolutionary biology, what's most impressive in this book is how the essays are delivered. Most of the chapters are so captivating that you find yourself wanting them not to end. My favourite four or five essays made me feel that I'd just come home from a delightful chat with the authors over drinks. Of course, not all of the essays leave you breathless, in fact some are downright stilted and you'd probably be better off reading the primary literature on the same topic. The biggest omission was the complete absence of essays by botanists. Surely charismatic ‘plant’ people like Spencer ‘swashbuckler’ Barrett, Loren ‘Michelangelo’ Rieseberg, and Doug ‘rock star’ Schemske could all have made wonderful contributions to this volume. However, the pros far outweigh the cons in this case and Losos has done a wonderful job putting together a book that's sure to be found on the night tables of both armchair and seasoned scientists alike.
Articles from Evolutionary Applications are provided here courtesy of Wiley-Blackwell
Is evolution about chance or fate? Well, it depends
Jonathan Losos's book Improbable Destinies tackles a controversy in biology - and finds that humans aren't all that different from the platypus
Destinies
Is the platypus an evolutionary masterpiece or just the lead clown?
Dave Watts/Biosphoto/FLPA
By Matthew Cobb
IT’S one of the biggest questions in biology: is the outcome of evolution deterministic and predictable? In particular, was the evolution of human beings, or something similar, inevitable?
Improbable Destinies cover
Jonathan Losos, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University, approaches this through the contrasting views of the late Stephen Jay Gould and University of Cambridge palaeontologist Simon Conway Morris.
Gould famously argued that if we “replayed the tape of life” we would get very different outcomes, because the pattern of evolution is unpredictable. In contrast, Conway Morris claims that convergent evolution – the idea that similar conditions produce similar adaptations – is “completely ubiquitous”.
Improbable Destinies focuses on the evidence underlying these opposing positions. However, chatty writing and an unclear structure mean that Losos does not explain the reasons behind Gould’s and Conway Morris’s ideas. Nor does he fully explore how their contrasting world views (Conway Morris is a devout Christian; Gould was a Marxist) influence their thinking.
Losos initially focuses on well-known examples of convergent evolution, such as the tendency of island animals – for instance hippos and mammoths – to become smaller than their continental counterparts. He also describes in some detail a series of experimental studies on lizards and fish that provide support for the centrality of convergent evolution, and thus for Conway Morris’s view.
But in the chapter on Richard Lenski’s ongoing study of bacterial evolution, Losos appears to switch sides. Lenski’s experiment began in 1988 and has, to date, involved nearly 70,000 generations and quadrillions of cells. Initially, the 12 identical lines of bacteria all grew faster and produced larger cells over the generations, so showed convergent evolution. But after around 31,000 generations, one line exhibited a unique adaptation – the ability to feed on citrate. Due to a series of random mutations, this line took a very different evolutionary path from the rest. Lenski’s attempts to encourage other lines to follow suit have failed. “So much for predictability and parallel evolution!” Losos writes.
Losos’s conclusion is that neither Gould nor Conway Morris is right. Faced with similar selection pressures, similar populations will indeed often produce convergent evolutionary outcomes. Even distantly related groups, such as marsupials and placental mammals, may do this – think of the marsupial and placental moles, separated by over 150 million years.
“Stephen Jay Gould argued that if we ‘replayed the tape of life’ we would get very different outcomes”
But the process isn’t ubiquitous. Sometimes, stuff happens and evolution goes a little crazy. In New Zealand, there were no terrestrial mammals (bats aside) until humans arrived, but in a striking example of non-convergent evolution, the islands’ birds did not evolve forms resembling mammals elsewhere that have a similar ecological niche and environment.
Alongside the widespread phenomenon of convergent evolution, life produces many unique forms. The human lineage is one such.
But before the reader can conclude that our uniqueness suggests we are the whole point of evolution, Losos plays his trump card: the duck-billed platypus.
This monotreme mammal has hair and a beak, and lays eggs. Like ours, its lineage is unique in the fossil record. Losos concludes that humans are no more the end-point of evolution than is the platypus, with its singular and slightly comical assemblage of characteristics. Not all evolution is convergent, he argues, and uniqueness does not imply destiny. That seems about right.
Improbable Destinies: How predictable is evolution?
Jonathan Losos
Allen Lane
This article appeared in print under the headline “Playing dice with the animals”
More on these topics:
Matthew Cobb is a zoologist at the University of Manchester, UK
Magazine issue 3148, published 21 October 2017
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