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Marine mammals are mammals that rely on marine (saltwater) ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as cetaceans, pinnipeds, sirenians, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their reliance on marine environments for feeding and survival.
Sarah Hrdy is an American anthropologist and primatologist who has made major contributions to evolutionary psychology and sociobiology. She is considered "a highly recognized pioneer in modernizing our understanding of the evolutionary basis of female behavior in both nonhuman and human primates". In 2013, Hrdy received a Lifetime Career Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution from the Human Behavior and Evolution Society.
Balaenidae is a family of whales of the parvorder Mysticeti that contains mostly fossil taxa and two living genera: the right whale, and the closely related bowhead whale.
In population genetics, gene flow is the transfer of genetic material from one population to another. If the rate of gene flow is high enough, then two populations will have equivalent allele frequencies and therefore can be considered a single effective population. It has been shown that it takes only "one migrant per generation" to prevent populations from diverging due to drift. Populations can diverge due to selection even when they are exchanging alleles, if the selection pressure is strong enough. Gene flow is an important mechanism for transferring genetic diversity among populations. Migrants change the distribution of genetic diversity among populations, by modifying allele frequencies. High rates of gene flow can reduce the genetic differentiation between the two groups, increasing homogeneity. For this reason, gene flow has been thought to constrain speciation and prevent range expansion by combining the gene pools of the groups, thus preventing the development of differences in genetic variation that would have led to differentiation and adaptation. In some cases dispersal resulting in gene flow may also result in the addition of novel genetic variants under positive selection to the gene pool of a species or population
Genetic diversity is the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species, it ranges widely from the number of species to differences within species and can be attributed to the span of survival for a species. It is distinguished from genetic variability, which describes the tendency of genetic characteristics to vary.
Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life forms on Earth. Evolution holds that all species are related and gradually change over generations. In a population, the genetic variations affect the phenotypes of an organism. These changes in the phenotypes will be an advantage to some organisms, which will then be passed on to their offspring. Some examples of evolution in species over many generations are the peppered moth and flightless birds. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biology emerged through what Julian Huxley called the modern synthesis of understanding, from previously unrelated fields of biological research, such as genetics and ecology, systematics, and paleontology.
The Allee effect is a phenomenon in biology characterized by a correlation between population size or density and the mean individual fitness of a population or species.
An apex predator, also known as a top predator, is a predator at the top of a food chain, without natural predators of its own.
Evolutionary suicide is an evolutionary phenomenon in which the process of adaptation causes the population to become extinct. It provides an alternative explanation for extinction, which is due to misadaptation rather than failure to adapt.
Pharyngeal jaws are a "second set" of jaws contained within an animal's throat, or pharynx, distinct from the primary or oral jaws. They are believed to have originated as modified gill arches, in much the same way as oral jaws. Originally hypothesized to have evolved only once, current morphological and genetic analyses suggest at least two separate points of origin. Based on connections between musculoskeletal morphology and dentition, diet has been proposed as a main driver of the evolution of the pharyngeal jaw. A study conducted on cichlids showed that the pharyngeal jaws can undergo morphological changes in less than two years in response to their diet. Fish that ate hard-shelled prey had a robust jaw with molar-like teeth fit for crushing their durable prey. Fish that ate softer prey, on the other hand, exhibited a more slender jaw with thin, curved teeth used for tearing apart fleshy prey. These rapid changes are an example of phenotypic plasticity, wherein environmental factors affect genetic expression responsible for pharyngeal jaw development. Studies of the genetic pathways suggest that receptors in the jaw bone respond to the mechanical strain of biting hard-shelled prey, which prompts the formation of a more robust set of pharyngeal jaws.
Naomi E. Pierce is an American entomologist and evolutionary biologist who studies plant-herbivore coevolution and is a world authority on butterflies. She is the Hessel Professor of Biology and Curator of Lepidoptera in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University.
Defaunation is the global, local, or functional extinction of animal populations or species from ecological communities. The growth of the human population, combined with advances in harvesting technologies, has led to more intense and efficient exploitation of the environment. This has resulted in the depletion of large vertebrates from ecological communities, creating what has been termed "empty forest". Defaunation differs from extinction; it includes both the disappearance of species and declines in abundance. Defaunation effects were first implied at the Symposium of Plant-Animal Interactions at the University of Campinas, Brazil in 1988 in the context of Neotropical forests. Since then, the term has gained broader usage in conservation biology as a global phenomenon.
Danielle "Hopi" Elizabeth Hoekstra is an evolutionary biologist working at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts and serving as the Dean of its Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Her lab uses natural populations of rodents to study the genetic basis of adaptation. She is the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. She is also the Curator of Mammals at the Museum of Comparative Zoology and a Harvard College Professor. In 2014, Hoekstra became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. In 2016, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and in 2017, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Hoekstra assumed the deanship of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences in August 2023.
Extended female sexuality is where the female of a species mates despite being infertile. In most species, the female only engages in copulation when she is fertile. However, extended sexuality has been documented in Old World primates, pair bonded birds and some insects. Extended sexuality is most prominent in human females who exhibit no change in copulation rate across the ovarian cycle.
Stephen R. Palumbi is the Jane and Marshall Steel Jr. Professor in Marine Sciences at Stanford University at Hopkins Marine Station. He also holds a Senior Fellowship at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.
Jeannine Cavender-Bares is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Ecology, Evolution & Behavior. Her research integrates evolutionary biology, ecology, and physiology by studying the functional traits of plants, with a particular focus on oaks.
Zoe G. Cardon is an American ecosystems ecologist focused on observing and understanding ecosystem interactions in the rhizosphere. She has also played an integral role in developing systems to better study the rhizosphere without digging it up and interfering with the ecosystems using stable isotopes and mathematical modeling. Cardon is currently a senior scientist at the Marine Biology Laboratory at the Ecosystems Center and an adjunct professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University. She is credited with helping to establish the National Microbiome Initiative at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in Washington, D.C.
Stephanie M. Carlson is the A.S. Leopold Chair in Wildlife Biology at the University of California Berkeley. Her research considers fish ecology, freshwater ecology, and evolutionary ecology.
Sharlene E. Santana is a Venezuelan–American biologist, currently serving as the Curator of Mammals at the Burke Museum of Natural History and as a professor of Evolutionary biology at the University of Washington, in Seattle, Washington. Her research primarily focuses on the order Chiroptera (bats), and her work often engages with a diverse range of biological disciplines, including evolution, systematics, biomechanics, behavioral studies, and ecology. Santana has worked to expand opportunities for underrepresented minorities in STEM fields and has relied on innovative applications of technology to increase the amount of high-quality scientific information that is available to the general public.
Richard (Dick) Frankham is an Australian biologist, author, and academic. He is an Emeritus Professor in Biology at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
References
- 1 2 Roman, Joe (2006). Whale. Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781861895059.
- 1 2 Roman, Joe (2011). Listed: Dispatches from America's Endangered Species Act. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674061279.
- 1 2 Roman, Joe; Palumbi, Stephen R. (2003). "Whales before whaling in the North Atlantic" (PDF). Science . 301 (5632): 508–510. Bibcode:2003Sci...301..508R. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.1025.5800 . doi:10.1126/science.1084524. PMID 12881568. S2CID 22656335.
- ↑ Roman, Joe; McCarthy, James J. (2010). "The Whale Pump: Marine Mammals Enhance Primary Productivity in a Coastal Basin". PLoS ONE . 5 (10): e13255. Bibcode:2010PLoSO...513255R. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0013255 . PMC 2952594 . PMID 20949007.
- ↑ Roman, Joe; Darling, John A. (2007). "Paradox Lost: Genetic Diversity and the Success of Aquatic Invasions". Trends in Ecology and Evolution . 22 (9): 454–464. doi:10.1016/j.tree.2007.07.002. PMID 17673331.
- ↑ Mishan, Ligaya, “When Invasive Species Become the Meal,” New York Times, October 2, 2020.
- 1 2 3 "Joe Roman – Fellow". Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, The University of Vermont. 2017. Retrieved July 15, 2017.
- ↑ "Harvard University library record: Notes to accompany Sun drift". Harvard University Library. 1985. Retrieved July 15, 2017.
- 1 2 "Harvard University library record: Tracking anthropogenic change in the North Atlantic Ocean with genetic tools". Harvard University Library. 2003. Retrieved July 15, 2017.
- ↑ Pongsiri, Montira J.; Roman, Joe; Ezenwa, Vanessa O.; Goldberg, Tony L.; Koren, Hillel S.; Newbold, Stephen C.; Ostfeld, Richard S.; Pattanayak, Subhrendu K.; Salkeld, Daniel J. (2009). "Biodiversity loss affects global disease ecology" (PDF). BioScience . 59 (11): 945–954. doi: 10.1525/bio.2009.59.11.6 .
- ↑ "Joe Roman Awarded 2014-2015 Hrdy Visiting Fellowship". oeb.harvard.edu (Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology). Harvard University. July 29, 2014. Retrieved July 15, 2017.
- ↑ "The Sarah and Daniel Hrdy Visiting Fellowship in Conservation Biology at Harvard University". oeb.harvard.edu (Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology). Harvard University. 2017. Retrieved July 15, 2017.
- ↑ Roman, Joe (2023). Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World. Little, Brown Spark. ISBN 9781805221692.
- ↑ "Winners: SEJ 11th Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment". Society of Environmental Journalists . October 17, 2012. Archived from the original on August 24, 2017. Retrieved July 15, 2017.
