The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms

Rating:
Summary: The most important ecology book of 2001, but...
Review: This splendid addition to the popular scientific literature is almost as insightful and as well written as David Quammen's "Song of the Dodo". A fine overview of Dr. Paul Martin's and Dr. Daniel Janzen's pioneering work on "ecological anachronisms" in New World plants, it should be read by ecologists and evolutionary biologists, as well as the scientfically interested public. Connie Barlow has made an important contribution to Martin's and Janzen's ideas by distinguishing relative degrees of ecological anachronisms. Yet her book does contain some serious omissions and factual errors which I shall note later. Let me first sing its praises.

Connie Barlow's overview of "ecological anachronisms" is absolutely superb. She has a tremendous eye for detail, but never gets completely bogged down by it. Instead, much of what she writes is replete with insightful humor. She opens with an excellent history of Martin's and Janzen's work. Her vivid writing is a wonderful synthesis of science, natural history and biography all thrown in for good measure. I suspect historians of science interested in ecology and evolutionary biology will turn to this book as a primary reference on "ecological anachronisms".

Readers will find compelling Connie Barlow's descriptions of Paul Martin and Daniel Janzen. She treats them as a dynamic pair passionate about their unique insights into ecology and other aspects of evolutionary biology. They will also find compelling her attempts at scientific research. I suspect they will chuckle as much I did while reading about her experiments on "ecological anachronisms" in the wilds of New Mexico and the urban jungle that is New York City.

Having sung some praises, let me point out some flaws. Robert MacArthur, the greatest ecologist of the late 20th Century, is tossing in his grave, hearing from Connie Barlow that evolutionary ecology is a new science. At the time of his death in 1972, he recognized the importance of history - or rather, "deep time" - in understanding ecological patterns. Indeed, he covers evolutionary ecology in the final chapter of his text "Geographical Ecology", an elegant synthesis and literary epitaph to his career. One of MacArthur's former graduate students, Dr. Michael Rosenzweig, a colleague of Paul Martin's at the University of Arizona, has looked upon paleontology as the source of interesting questions relevant to ecology which many ecologists don't have training, interest, or time to pursue. His interest has spanned decades, culminating in his "incumbent replacement" hypothesis on the role of adaptation in promoting "evolutionary success" in clades (groups of related species that share a common ancestor) that was published in 1991 in the scientific journal Paleobiology.

"Devolution" is a scientifically inaccurate term which Connie Barlow mentions several times, most notably on pages 220-221. What she describes as devolution sounds a lot like neoteny to me. In neoteny, juvenile features are retained by adults through natural selection. It's possible that natural selection will act to promote the production of smaller fruit in succeeding generations, as the result of neoteny, not "devolution." Stephen Jay Gould's "Ontogeny and Phylogeny" provides an excellent description of neoteny and other evolutionary trends related to changes in size and shape. Indeed, I wish she had shown him her manuscript prior to its publication. His insightful comments on "devolution" and adaptation - or rather aptations - would have made this a better, more scientifically accurate, book. Indeed, one minor failing of this book is that she glosses over the significance of adaptations/aptations/exaptations as a key towards understanding ecological anachronisms which a scientifically literate public might miss easily.

Despite my strong reservations, I still enthusiastically endorse this book. Its excellent coverage of "ecological anachronisms" should be long remembered.