Assembling the Tree of Life

Rating:
Summary: Overall quite good when on topic
Review: As a researcher working on microbial evolution I found this book quite useful as a summary of what is currently known about phylogeny of the various groups of microbes (as well as satisfying idle curiosity about the relations of various macrobes that the bulk of the book deals with). My only criticism is that in some cases the authors of the individual chapters chose unfortunately not to address the declared topic of their assigned chapter but rather to use the space to discuss something else. In particular, one learns little about the phylogeny of Bacteria and Archaea in Ford Doolittle's chapter of that name; instead Doolittle mostly discusses his theories on lateral gene transfer which, while certainly interesting if one hasn't read about them elsewhere, are not very helpful in a reference book on phylogeny. A similar argument could be made with Herve Philippe's chapter on early eukaryotic evolution, which mostly discusses problems of long branch attraction. However, other chapters in the book such as those of Baldauf, et al. and Norm Pace do cover microbial phylogeny in a more useful manner, so all is not lost by such digressions.

Rating:
Summary: The Tree of Life
Review: Phylogenetics used to be an overlooked (and discredited) field. Since it was impossible to judge the validity of different schemes, many despaired of the possibility of coming to definitive conclusions. As recently as a decade ago, you could write a book stating that arthropods were not monophyletic and still be taken seriously ("weed" diagrams rather than trees were fashionable).

Besides, as the saying goes, "life was elsewhere". Molecular biologists were (and, in many cases, still are) mostly ignorant of basic evolutionary biology. In a recent textbook on the molecular mechanisms of development, the authors display a "phylogenetic" diagram that seems to imply that arthropods are intermediate between annelids and vertebrates!

The situation is changing. Molecular biologists have to do more than paying lip service to evolutionary theory. On the other hand, molecular methods have revolutionized the field of phylogenetics and offered, for the first time, the hope of systematically deriving the "Tree of Life". While the work is not finished yet, it was time to summarize the present situation. This multiple-author volume does the job beautifully.

Giving a summary of this work is an impossible task: it would be like giving a summary of an encyclopedia! Because, this is what this volume really is: an encyclopedic summary of the present knowledge of the history of life on Earth. Each chapter, on different life forms, is written by specialists in the field.

I liked the chapter on "Algal Evolution and the Early Radiation of Green Plants" by C. F. Delwiche et al. a lot. Most books on evolution deal with animals and plant phylogenetics is not really a popular subject. Also, the best book available on the biology of plants ("Green Plants", by P. R. Bell and A. R. Hemsley) is a phylogenetic disaster. So it is nice to see a summary of the early history of what, arguably, are the most important life forms on the planet.

All the chapters I have read are, at least, very competently written. For the animals, I like Valentine's "The Origin of Phyla" better (see my review), but as a view of Life as a Whole, this book is unsurpassed.



Rating:
Summary: This book saved my life
Review: This book is a magnificant wealth of information. Chapter 29 is of particular interest. A rare find in the world of evolutionary biology.