Ecoepigenetics In Clonal And Inbreeding Plants Transgenerational Adaptation And Environmental Variation

Clonality is widespread in plant species, and clonal plants often have a broad geographic range and long lifespan. Clonality can maintain high fitness in the short term, but vegetative reproduction is commonly considered to preclude adaptation to changing conditions. However, an increasing body of empirical and theoretical evidence suggests that epigenetic modifications such as DNA methylation can provide an alternative to gene-driven evolution through natural selection and allow clonal plants to maintain fitness in the long term. To deepen our understanding of clonal ecology, this collection of research papers and reviews focuses on how epigenetic regulation can encode phenotypic plasticity and contribute to the rapid adaptation of clonal plants to accelerating global and regional environmental changes.

The emergence of genomic variability is a fundamental process in evolution that has been the focus of recent high-profile scientific debates, with a particular focus on epigenetic modifications shown to influence genomic variability.Epigenetics and Evolution, a new volume in the Translational Epigenetics series, introduces key themes from current epigenetic evolution research, with contributions from leading scientists around the world that investigate the role of epigenetic mechanisms in evolution from a variety of different angles, with each contribution combining theory, current research overviews, and applications. This book gives researchers, students, and clinicians a better understanding of the origin of genotypic and phenotypic variability, the role of epigenetics in development and inheritance, how epigenetics may affect speciation and geographic distribution, and the evolution of epigenetic mechanisms in different taxa, and helps them apply their learnings across new research. Other modalities and subtopics explored include epigenetics in neutral evolution; epigenetics and cellular physiology; Paleo-epigenetics; Archeo-epigenetics; epigenetics and pathogen evolution; epigenetics in unicellular organisms; epigenetic evolution in plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates; and the role of epigenetics in human evolution and its societal impact. Introduces and examines the role of epigenetic modifications in regulating genomic variability, and thus evolutionary biology, across species Draws together key themes across epigenetic evolution in plants, invertebrates, and vertebrates, and the role of epigenetics in human evolution Includes bulleted chapter summaries and key points lists, terms and definitions, and rich use of illustrations where possible to reinforce understanding and actionability of the content Features chapter contributions from international leaders in the field

There are many hypotheses describing the interactions involved in biological invasions, but it is largely unknown whether they are backed up by empirical evidence. This book fills that gap by developing a tool for assessing research hypotheses and applying it to twelve invasion hypotheses, using the hierarchy-of-hypotheses (HoH) approach, and mapping the connections between theory and evidence. In Part 1, an overview chapter of invasion biology is followed by an introduction to the HoH approach and short chapters by science theorists and philosophers who comment on the approach. Part 2 outlines the invasion hypotheses and their interrelationships. These include biotic resistance and island susceptibility hypotheses, disturbance hypothesis, invasional meltdown hypothesis, enemy release hypothesis, evolution of increased competitive ability and shifting defence hypotheses, tens rule, phenotypic plasticity hypothesis, Darwin's naturalization and limiting similarity hypotheses and the propagule pressure hypothesis. Part 3 provides a synthesis and suggests future directions for invasion research.

Bonduriansky and Day challenge the premise that genes alone mediate the transmission of biological information across generations and provide the raw material for natural selection. They explore the latest research showing that what happens during our lifetimes—and even our parents’ and grandparents’ lifetimes—can influence the features of our descendants. Based on this evidence, Bonduriansky and Day develop an extended concept of heredity that upends ideas about how traits can and cannot be transmitted across generations, opening the door to a new understanding of inheritance, evolution, and even human health. --Adapted from publisher description.

In this edited volume, global experts in ecology and evolutionary biology explore how theories in ecology elucidate the processes of invasion, while also examining how specific invasions inform ecological theory. This reciprocal benefit is highlighted in a number of scales of organization: population, community and biogeographic. The text describes example invaders in all major groups of organisms and from a number of regions around the globe.

Polyploidy – whole-genome duplication (WGD) – is a fundamental driver of biodiversity with significant consequences for genome structure, organization, and evolution. Once considered a speciation process common only in plants, polyploidy is now recognized to have played a major role in the structure, gene content, and evolution of most eukaryotic genomes. In fact, the diversity of eukaryotes seems closely tied to multiple WGDs. Polyploidy generates new genomic interactions – initially resulting in “genomic and transcriptomic shock” – that must be resolved in a new polyploid lineage. This process essentially acts as a “reset” button, resulting in genomic changes that may ultimately promote adaptive speciation. This book brings together for the first time the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of polyploid genome evolution with syntheses of the patterns and processes of genome evolution in diverse polyploid groups. Because polyploidy is most common and best studied in plants, the book emphasizes plant models, but recent studies of vertebrates and fungi are providing fresh perspectives on factors that allow polyploid speciation and shape polyploid genomes. The emerging paradigm is that polyploidy – through alterations in genome structure and gene regulation – generates genetic and phenotypic novelty that manifests itself at the chromosomal, physiological, and organismal levels, with long-term ecological and evolutionary consequences.

Polyploidy plays an important role in biological diversity, trait improvement, and plant species survival. Understanding the evolutionary phenomenon of polyploidy is a key challenge for plant and crop scientists. This book is made up of contributions from leading researchers in the field from around the world, providing a truly global review of the subject. Providing broad-ranging coverage, and up-to-date information from some of the world’s leading researchers, this book is an invaluable resource for geneticists, plant and crop scientists, and evolutionary biologists.

An exploration of the implications of developments in artificial intelligence for social scientific research, which builds on the theoretical and methodological insights provided by "Simulating societies".; This book is intended for worldwide library market for social science subjects such as sociology, political science, geography, archaeology/anthropology, and significant appeal within computer science, particularly artificial intelligence. Also personal reference for researchers.