30-Second Evolution: the 50 most significant ideas and events, each explained in half a minute

Adapt or die: it's nature's most famous imperative. But how does evolution actually happen? It's too slow to see, but it's going on all around you, all the time. Even if you're on top of the key terms - variation? Natural selection? Parent-offspring conflict? - you still need some context to put them in. From populations to speciation and polymorphism to evolutionary psychology, here's the one-stop source for all you need to know. Evolution unlocks the laboratory of life, dissecting it into the 50 most significant topics that provide the missing links to understand the natural world's f.

Cover Page; Title Page; Contents; Introduction; The History of Evolution; GLOSSARY; Before Evolution; Transmutation & Archetypes; Variation & Selection; Profile: Charles Darwin; The Rediscovery of Mendel; Understanding Genes in Populations; The Modern Synthesis; Controversies; The Origin of Species; GLOSSARY; Species & Taxonomy; Building Phylogenies; Making Species: Isolation; Profile: Alfred Russel Wallace; Mechanisms of Isolation; Mutation & Speciation; From Adaptation to Speciation; Species Diversity; Natural Selection; GLOSSARY; Populations; The Need for Adaptation; Genes.

Profile: J.B.S. HalbaneGenetic Variation; Polymorphism & Genetic Drift; Types of Selection; Units of Selection; Evolutionary History & Extinction; GLOSSARY; How Life Began; The Geological Record; Geological Change & Mammalian Evolution; Profile: Lynn Margulis; Emergence of Major Plant and Animal Groups; Evolutionary Rates & Extinctions; The Mystery of the Cambrian Explosion; Great Extinctions; Causes of Extinction; Evolution in Progress; GLOSSARY; Evolutionary Constraints; Coevolution; Convergent Evolution; Industrial Melanism; New Species; Profile: Peter & Rosemary Grant.

Evolution of Animal BehaviourAltr…