Cultural Transmission and Evolution (MPB-16), Volume 16 PDF Download

Author: L L Cavalli-sforza
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209359
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
A number of scholars have found that concepts such as mutation, selection, and random drift, which emerged from the theory of biological evolution, may also explain evolutionary phenomena in other disciplines as well. Drawing on these concepts, Professors Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman classify and systematize the various modes of transmitting "culture" and explore their consequences for cultural evolution. In the process, they develop a mathematical theory of the non-genetic transmission of cultural traits that provides a framework for future investigations in quantitative social and anthropological science. The authors use quantitative models that incorporate the various modes of transmission (for example, parent-child, peer-peer, and teacher-student), and evaluate data from sociology, archaeology, and epidemiology in terms of the models. They show that the various modes of transmission in conjunction with cultural and natural selection produce various rates of cultural evolution and various degrees of diversity within and between groups. The same framework can be used for explaining phenomena as apparently unrelated as linguistics, epidemics, social values and customs, and diffusion of innovations. The authors conclude that cultural transmission is an essential factor in the study of cultural change.

Author: Los Angeles Robert Boyd Professor of Anthropology University of California
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198040088
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 468

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Book Description
Oxford presents, in one convenient and coherently organized volume, 20 influential but until now relatively inaccessible articles that form the backbone of Boyd and Richerson's path-breaking work on evolution and culture. Their interdisciplinary research is based on two notions. First, that culture is crucial for understanding human behavior; unlike other organisms, socially transmitted beliefs, attitudes, and values heavily influence our behavior. Secondly, culture is part of biology: the capacity to acquire and transmit culture is a derived component of human psychology, and the contents of culture are deeply intertwined with our biology. Culture then is a pool of information, stored in the brains of the population that gets transmitted from one brain to another by social learning processes. Therefore, culture can account for both our outstanding ecological success as well as the maladaptations that characterize much of human behavior. The interest in this collection will span anthropology, psychology, economics, philosophy, and political science.

Author: Samuel Karlin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069121011X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
This book deals with a key area of population genetics: the ratio of the sexes in a population, or the allocation of resources to male versus female reproductive function. Samuel Karlin and Sabin Lessard establish the formal theoretical aspects of the evolution of sex ratio within the constraints of genetic mechanisms of sex determination. Their results generalize and unify existing work on the topic, strengthening previous conceptions in some cases and, in other instances, offering new directions of research. There are two main approaches to understanding the causes and effects of sex ratio. One approach focuses on the optimization and adaptive functions of sex allocation, while the other emphasizes the consequences of genetic sex determination mechanisms. In discussing the utility of these two approaches, Professors Karlin and Lessard examine the principal sex-determining mechanisms and facts involved in sex ratio representations, the various genetic and environmental factors that contribute to adaptive sex expression, and the evolution of sex determining systems and controls. From a population genetic perspective, the authors derive evolutionary properties in support of the high incidence of 1:1 sex ratio in natural populations and investigate the conditions that can explain the occurrence of biased sex ratio.

Author: Wayne M. Getz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209634
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
Whether in felling trees for wood, rearing insects for biological control, or culling animals for conservation purposes, efficient management of biological systems requires quantitative analysis of population growth and harvesting policies. Aiming to encourage the exchange of ideas among scientists involved in the management of fisheries, wildlife, forest stands, and pest control, the authors of this work present a general framework for modeling populations that reproduce seasonally and that have age or stage structure as an essential component of management strategy. The book represents the first time that examples from such diverse areas of biological resource management have been brought together in a unified modeling framework using the standard notation of mathematical systems theory. In addition, the authors combine a nonlinear extension of Leslie matrix theory and certain linear elements, thereby permitting interesting analytical results and the creation of compact, realistic simulation models of resource systems.

Author: Adam Lomnicki
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209618
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
A common tendency in the field of population ecology has been to overlook individual differences by treating populations as homogeneous units; conversely, in behavioral ecology the tendency has been to concentrate on how individual behavior is shaped by evolutionary forces, but not on how this behavior affects population dynamics. Adam Lomnicki and others aim to remedy this one-sidedness by showing that the overall dynamical behavior of populations must ultimately be understood in terms of the behavior of individuals. Professor Lomnicki's wide-ranging presentation of this approach includes simple mathematical models aimed at describing both the origin and consequences of individual variation among plants and animals. The author contends that further progress in population ecology will require taking into account individual differences other than sex, age, and taxonomic affiliation--unequal access to resources, for instance. Population ecologists who adopt this viewpoint may discover new answers to classical questions of population ecology. Partly because it uses a variety of examples from many taxonomic groups, this work will appeal not only to population ecologists but to ecologists in general.

Author: Robert V. O'Neill
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691236607
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
"Ecosystem" is an intuitively appealing concept to most ecologists, but, in spite of its widespread use, the term remains diffuse and ambiguous. The authors of this book argue that previous attempts to define the concept have been derived from particular viewpoints to the exclusion of others equally possible. They offer instead a more general line of thought based on hierarchy theory. Their contribution should help to counteract the present separation of subdisciplines in ecology and to bring functional and population/community ecologists closer to a common approach. Developed as a way of understanding highly complex organized systems, hierarchy theory has at its center the idea that organization results from differences in process rates. To the authors the theory suggests an objective way of decomposing ecosystems into their component parts. The results thus obtained offer a rewarding method for integrating various schools of ecology.

Author: Glen Everett Woolfenden
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209987
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
Florida Scrub Jays are an excellent example of a cooperative-breeding species, in which adult birds often help raise offspring not their own. For more than a decade Glen E. Woolfenden and John W. Fitzpatrick studied a marked population of these birds in an attempt to establish a demographic base for understanding the phenomenon of "helping at the nest." By studying both population biology and behavior, the authors found that habitat restraints, rather than kin selection, are the main source of the behavior of Florida Scrub Jays: the goal of increasing the number of close relatives other than descendants in future generations is of relatively minor importance in their cooperative-breeding behavior. The Florida Scrub Jay lives only in the Florida oak scrub. All acceptable habitat is constantly filled with breeders. Each year about half of the pairs are assisted by one to several nonbreeding helpers. This book provides extensive data on fecundity, survivorship, relatedness, and dispersal to establish the demographic milieu and to address questions arising out of observed helping behavior--whom, how, when, and why the helpers help.

Author: Nancy Burley
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209502
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
This book maintains that higher plants manifest some degree of sexual selection, and it begins to build a framework that unifies many features of plant reproduction previously considered unrelated. Reviewing evidence for sexual selection in plants, the authors discuss possible male-female interactions, concluding with an extensive set of hypotheses for testing. Mechanisms that could be employed in sexual selection in plants include various cellular mechanisms, such as both nuclear and cytoplasmic genetics, B chromosomes, and paternal contributions to the zygote, as well as abortion, double fertilization, delayed fertilization, and certain forms of polyembryony. This study compares the consequences of these processes for the evolution of mate choice in "gymnosperms" and angiosperms.

Author: Henry S. Horn
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209294
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Through use of the models Professor Horn has devised, plant ecologists, foresters, and botanists will be able to predict the growth and productivity of a forest, the invading and senile species in a forest, the effect of shade tolerance on forest succession, and similar questions.

Author: Walter D. Koenig
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691209626
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
Ever since the acorn woodpecker was observed and described by Spanish explorers, its behavior--particularly the unique habit of caching acorns in specialized storage trees or granaries--has impressed observers. Acorn woodpeckers are also one of the few temperate zone species in which young are reared communally in family groups. This demographic study investigates the complexities of acorn storage and group living in acorn woodpeckers at Hastings Reservation in central coastal California. It is one of the most thorough studies of any avian social system to date.