Charles Darwin famously concluded On the Origin of Species with a
vision of “endless forms most beautiful” continually evolving. More than 150
years later many evolutionary biologists see not endless forms but the same, or
very similar, forms evolving repeatedly in many independent species lineages. A
porpoise’s fishlike fins, for example, are not inherited from fish ancestors
but are independently derived convergent traits. In this book, George McGhee
describes the ubiquity of the phenomenon of convergent evolution and connects
it directly to the concept of evolutionary constraint--the idea that the number
of evolutionary pathways available to life are not endless, but quite
limited.
Convergent
evolution occurs on all levels, from tiny organic molecules to entire
ecosystems of species. McGhee demonstrates its ubiquity in animals, both
herbivore and carnivore; in plants; in ecosystems; in molecules, including DNA,
proteins, and enzymes; and even in minds, describing problem-solving behavior
and group behavior as the products of convergence. For each species example, he
provides an abbreviated list of the major nodes in its phylogenetic
classification, allowing the reader to see the evolutionary relationship of a
group of species that have independently evolved a similar trait by convergent
evolution. McGhee analyzes the role of functional and developmental constraints
in producing convergent evolution, and considers the scientific and
philosophical implications of convergent evolution for the predictability of
the evolutionary process.
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