Genetics, Speciation, and the Founder Principle

This book describes the genetic mechanisms that govern the development and evolution of animals and plants. In particular, the book focuses on animal and plant species evolving in isolated habitats and species colonizing new territories. This approach--studying "founder" populations--enables geneticists to more readily identify some of the evolutionary pressures affecting the speciation process. The Founder Principle in population genetics was elucidated in large part by Hampton Carson in classic studies of Hawaiian fruit flies (Drosophila). The editors of this volume have commissioned seventeen chapters by an internationally recognized group of geneticists who discuss the principle in relation to plant speciation, chromosomal evolution, molecular evolution and development, sexual selection, and genetic changes in natural populations.