Bibliographic record
Abstract
The meaning of the title of this book is not immediately obvious and it is only in the last chapter, an overview by John Endler that its meaning is defined (p. 251), ‘I use the term “adaptive genetic variation” in the sense of genetic variation that is correlated with variation in lifetime or total fitness of individuals’. In other words, genetic variation that permits adaptation. This is slightly at odds with the description given in the preface, which is (pv), ‘The central thesis of this collective work is that the expression of genetic variation is modulated and shaped by the action of natural selection in the natural environment’. I do not disagree with either of these statements and both can be applied to the chapters in this book, to the extent that genetic variation is presumed to exist. However, none of the chapters, with the possible exception of chapter 1 (see below), addresses the questions ‘how is genetic variation maintained?’ or ‘is genetic variation per se adaptive or does it merely permit adaptation?’ At the present time we do not have satisfactory answers to either question. Within the above limitation of the scope of research this book provides a valuable glimpse into the continuing research on adaptive evolutionary change in natural populations (which is probably a better title). The collection of chapters is not organized in any particular manner (at least to this reviewer) and the chapter I would suggest starting with is the last chapter, the overview by John Endler. The 10 chapters forming the main body of the book are each organized about a particular taxon, from the level of the species to variation among families, with most focusing upon variation within species. After reading Endler’s overview I recommend the following sequence of chapters (there are a number of possibilities but I definitely found the order as given not satisfactory): (1) Chapters emphasizing genetic variation and its consequences: Chapter 9 by Hoffman addresses the question of whether genetic variation measured in the lab is indicative of variation measured in the field. Chapter 8 in which Ritland provides some alternative methods based on molecular markers. Chapter 10 by Mousseau provides instructive examples of both the regression and the marker-based methods of estimating heritability (also analysis of adaptation using geographical variation). Chapter 1 by the Grants examines genetic variation in Darwin’s finches and the possible role of hybridization in introducing genetic variation into a population. Chapter 4 by Nager, Keller and van Noordwijk argue for the importance of genotype by environment interaction and the role of adaptive phenotypic plasticity. (2) Chapters emphasizing adaptive evolution within species: Chapter 6, written by Smith and Girman, discusses the evolution of bill size in an African finch. Chapter 3, by Robinson and Schluter, also discusses the evolution of trophic structures, in this case the evolution of gill rakers in a variety of northen fishes. Chapter 2, by Sinervo, describes his work on the evolution of egg and clutch size in the lizard Uta stansburiana. Sinervo demonstrates the utility of path analysis for investigating causal relationships. Another example of the use of path analysis is given by Mazer and Meade in chapter 7, where they describe their research on the evolution of flower size in wild radish. This chapter demonstrates that evolution frequently involves interaction among species, in this case wild radish and its pollinators. Chapter 5 by Moper, Landau and van Zandt, describes a fascinating study of leafminer interpopulation variation, showing that although gene flow is occurring there is continual selection reducing variation at a site over time. In summary, this book would be excellent as a focus for a graduate course and provides a general overview of the field. I came away with a sense that there is a lot remaining to be done but also some real excitement in the field.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.041 | 0.026 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".