USEFUL REFERENCE BOOKS IN EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
AN ABBREVIATED LIST FOR STUDENTS
Organized by David B. Wake
December, 1996

This list is designed for students in an advanced class in evolution, or beginning graduate students. The list includes long-lasting classics, books of value or controversy, and recent or hot books. Some recent books will doubtless have only ephemeral value but they are included because of their utility in finding term paper topics, getting reviews of recent literature, and the like.

I. Classics

Darwin, C. 1859. On the Origin of Species. London: John Murray (always seek out the first edition, facsimile version, and avoid later editions).

Dobzhansky, T. 1937. Genetics and the Origin of Species. New York: Columbia Univ. Press (there are several later editions, and the title changed in the last).

Fisher, R. A. 1930. The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press (there is a later edition).

Hennig, W. 1966. Phylogenetic Systematics. Urbana: Univ. Illinois Press (an English translation of a book published earlier in German).

Mayr, E. 1942. Systematics and the Origin of Species. New York: Columbia Univ. Press (there is a later edition, with a different title).

Schmalhausen, I. I. 1949. Factors of Evolution. Philadelphia: Blakiston (publication of this book, written in the early 1940's, was delayed because of war, and then the translation from Russian to English was also delayed; it has been reprinted by Univ. Chicago Press).

Simpson, G. G. 1944. Tempo and Mode of Evolution. New York: Columbia Univ. Press (again, there is a later edition, with a different title).

II. Accessible General Books

Bonner, J. T. 1988. The Evolution of Complexity. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.

Dawkins, R. 1986. The Blind Watchmaker. New York: Norton.

Gould, S. J. 1989. Wonderful Life. New York: Norton.

III. History and Philosophy

Hall, B. J. (ed.). 1994. Homology, the Hierarchical Basis of Comparative Biology. San Diego: Academic Press (a collection of essays by many authors).

Keller, E. F. and E. A. Lloyd. 1992. Keywords in Evolutionary Biology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.

Mayr, E. 1982. The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.

Rieppel, O. 1988. Fundamentals of Comparative Biology. Basel: Birkhäuser

IV. Units of Evolution

Dawkins, R. 1982. The Extended Phenotype. New York: W. H. Freeman.

Williams, G. C. 1966. Adaptation and Natural Selection. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press (destined to be classic).

Williams, G. C. 1992. Natural Selection: Domains, Levels and Challenges. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

V. Population and Quantitative Genetics

Crow, J. F. 1991. Basic Concepts in Population, Quantitative, and Evolutionary Genetics. New York: W. H. Freeman.

Falconer, D. S. 1981. Introduction to Quantitative Genetics, second ed. London: Longman.

Hartl, D. L. And A. G. Clark. 1989. Principles of Population Genetics, second, ed. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.

Real, L. A. (ed.). 1994. Ecological Genetics. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press (a collection of essays by many authors).

VI. Selection

Bell, G. 1996. The Basics of Selection. New York: Chapman and Hall.

Sober, E. 1984. The Nature of Selection, Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

VII. Molecular Evolution

Gillespie, J. H. 1992. The Causes of Molecular Evolution. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Kimura, M. 1983. The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Li, W-H. and D. Grauer. 1991. Fundamentals of Molecular Evolution. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.

Ohno, S. 1970. Evolution by Gene Duplication. New York: Springer Verlag (a minor classic, now out of date).

VIII. Adaptation and Life Histories

Roff, D. A. 1992. The Evolution of Life Histories. New York: Chapman and Hall.

Rose, M. R. and G. V. Lauder (eds.). 1996. Adaptation. San Diego: Academic press (a collection of essays by many authors).

IX. Species Concepts and Species Formation

Otte, D. and J. A. Endler (eds.). 1989. Speciation and its Consequences. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer (a collection of essays by many authors).
X. Phylogenetics and Systematics

Hillis, D., C. Moritz, and B. Mable. 1996. Molecular Systematics, second edition. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.

Maddison, W. P. and D. R. Maddison. 1992. Macclade, Analysis of Phylogeny and Character Evolution, version 3. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer (Part 2, chapters 3 6, deal with modern phylogenetic theory).

Sanderson, M. J., and L. Hufford. 1996. Homoplasy, the Recurrence of Similarity in Evolution. San Diego: Academic Press (a collection of essays by many authors).

XI. Adaptive Radiation and Major Features of Evolution.

Grant, P. R. 1986. Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press.

Nitecki, M. H. (ed.). 1990. Evolutionary Innovations (a collection of essays). Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press.

XII. Development and Evolution

Gould, S. J. 1977. Ontogeny and Phylogeny. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press

Hall, B. J. 1992. Evolutionary Developmental Biology. New York: Chapman and Hall.

McKinney, M. L. and K. McNamara. 1991. Heterochrony: the Evolution of Ontogeny. New York: Plenum.

Raff, R. A. 1996. The Shape of Life: Genes, Development and the Evolution of Animal Form. Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press.

XIII. Great Dissenters, from Brilliant Iconoclasts to Cranks.

Goodwin, B. 1994. How the Leopard Changed its Spots, the Evolution of Complexity. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Goldschmidt, R. B. 1940. The Material Basis of Evolution. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.

Kauffman, S. A. 1993. The Origins of Order, Self-organization and selection in evolution. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

Margulis, L. and D. Sagan. 1986. Origin of Sex, three billion years of genetic recombination. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.

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