Evolutionary genetics — from molecules to morphology

Evolutionary Genetics — From Molecules to Morphology. Rama S. Singh and Costas B. Krimbas (eds). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 2000. Pp. 702. Price £60.00, hardback. ISBN 0 521

57123 5. This volume is the first of three volumes from a Festschrift marking the occasion of Richard C. Lewontin’s 65th birthday and the approximate time of his retirement. The volumes were

planned and invitations to authors were formalized in 1996. This first volume appeared in 2000, but a celebration, colloquially referred to as _Dickfest_, was held on September 6, 1998 at

the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. The frontispiece is a photograph of 115 friends, former students and post docs that attended _Dickfest_. Dick Lewontin has been a leader in

population genetics and evolution for over 40 years, and his influence has been enhanced by interactions with more than 100 graduate students and postdocs. He is most widely known for the

innovation of using electrophoretic surveys of proteins to quantify genetic variation within and among populations. This innovation triggered thousands of studies of plant, animal, and

microbial populations, providing the data that inspired the neutral theory and fuelled the festering debate between neutralists and selectionists. Lewontin also made numerous theoretical

contributions, most notably on linkage disequilibrium and units of selection. The book contains 32 chapters organized into eight sections: historical perspectives on population genetics;

molecular evolution; selection, linkage and breeding systems; quantitative genetics; gene flow and population structure; population genetics and speciation; and behavioural ecology. Each

section begins with a preface that provides historical perspective and organizational overview. The book has a subject index and a listing of Lewontin’s publications, currently 274 and still

growing. I wish they had included a diagram of his academic genealogy. Because the 32 chapters are grouped into eight sections, the coverage of any section is sketchy and partially

dependent on the historical contingency of the author being associated with Lewontin. This Festschrift will be valued as an historic marker, the celebration, hosted by his academic family,

of an accomplished scientist, rather than as a focused academic effort. Nevertheless, this volume contains some fine papers. The first chapter, by Dick Lewontin, entitled ‘The Problems of

Population Genetics’, is a familiar theme that Lewontin treats with authority. Parts of the chapter are echoes of earlier reviews, a litany of what we do not know and cannot know. Some of

this is unjustified pessimism commonly mistaken for scientific rigor. Other parts, such as his discussions of codon bias and comparisons of coding and noncoding sites, are novel and

uncharacteristically optimistic. Several chapters were particularly noteworthy. Bruce Wallace provided an historic analysis of heterosis, pointing out that ‘neutrality of phenotypic

variation arises as an average of many, non-neutral selective roles played by individual variants during decisive encounters’. Andrew Berry and Antonio Barbadilla showed that, while

recombination is most important for exchanging fragments between loci, gene conversion is much more important for generating diversity within a locus. Eleftherios Zouros and David Rand

provided a thoughtful, comprehensive overview of the evolutionary forces influencing the evolution of mtDNA, and the implications of various forms of selection for phylogeographic studies.

Jerry Coyne and Allen Orr summarized recent progress on the genetics of speciation. The second volume from _Dickfest_ appeared in 2001, and the third is in preparation. AUTHOR INFORMATION

AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Department of Environmental, Population, and Organismic Biology, University of Colorado, Boulder, 80309, Colorado, USA Jeffry B Mitton Authors * Jeffry B Mitton

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