Evolutionary Biology

Evolutionary Biology has been written for those students interested in careers in diverse fields of biological sciences. It provides a structured approach to learning by covering all the important topics in a uniform, systematic format. The origin and evolution of man, Homo sapiens, have been a topic of great biological interest since time immemorial. The idea that man is a creation of a super-natural power prevailed for long time in earlier days. Human evolution is the lengthy process of change by which people originated from apelike ancestors. Scientific evidence shows that the physical and behavioral traits shared by all people originated from apelike ancestors and evolved over a period of approximately six million years. Evolution is an interdisciplinary science and extends to diverse fields such as zoology, botany, earth science and geography. The present title is an effort to summarize the basic concept and principles of the subject, to present the elementary factual information with which a person to be competent in the field should be familiar, and to show how these principles and facts may be applied in a practical way to the interests and welfare of man. Evolution is the central unifying concept in biology. Biology can be divided in various ways. One way is by the level of biological organisation, from molecular to cell, organism to population. An earlier way is by perceived taxonomic group, with fields such as zoology, botany, and microbiology, reflecting what were once seen as the major divisions of life. A third way is by approach, such as field biology, theoretical biology, experimental evolution, and paleontology. These alternative ways of dividing up the subject can be combined with evolutionary biology to create subfields like evolutionary ecology and evolutionary developmental biology. This book brings together the various biological phenomena concerning the fact of evolutionary biology in as lucid and logical a manner as possible.