Evolutionary Biology: Volume 9 PDF
Preview Evolutionary Biology: Volume 9
Evolutionary Biology VOLUME 9 Evolutionary Biology VOLUME 9 Edited by MAXK.HECHT Queens College of the City University ofN ew York Flushing, New York WILLIAM C. STEERE New York Botanical Garden Bronx, New York and BRUCE WALLACE Cornell University Ithaca, New York PLENUM PRESS. NEW YORK AND LONDON The Library of Congress cataloged the first volume of this title as follows: Evolutionary biology. v. 1- 1967- New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts. v. lJIus. 24 em. annual. Editors: 1967- T. Dobzhansky and others. 1. Evolution - Period 2. Biology - Period. L Dobzhansky, Theodoslu8 Grlgorlevlch, 1900- QH366.A1E9 575'.005 67-11961 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 67-11961 ISBN 978-1-4615-6952-7 ISBN 978-1-4615-6950-3 (eBook) DOl 10.1007/978-1-4615-6950-3 © 1976 Plenum Press, New York Softcover reprint of the hardcover 18t edition 1976 A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation 227 West 17th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher Contributors J. P. GUSTAFSON • Department oj Plant Science, University oj Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada MAX K. HECHT • Department oj Biology, Queens College oj the City University oj New York, Flushing, New York JUHANI LOKKI • Department oj Genetics, University oj Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland BASSETT MAGUIRE, JR. • Department oj Zoology, University oj Texas, A ustin, Texas ANSSI SAURA • Department oj Genetics, University oj Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland D. B. O. SA VILE • Biosystematics Research Institute, Agriculture Canada, Ottawa, Ontario ARTHUR M. SHAPIRO • Department oj Zoology, University oj California, Davis, California ESKO SUOMALAINEN • Department oj Genetics, University oj Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland G. LEDYARD STEBBINS • Department oj Genetics, University oj California, Davis, California ROBERT F. THORNE • Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, Claremont, California Theodosius Dobzhansky 1900-1975 In Memoriam Theodosius Dobzhansky, a founding editor of Evolutionary Biology, died on December 18, 1975 at Davis, California at the age of 75 following a progressively worsening illness of some eight years' duration. Cor respondence received by colleagues after his death shows that he was reviewing their manuscripts until his last moments; both the pace he had long set for himself and the physical stamina which sustained it endured to the end. A review of the first 70 years of Dobzhansky's life appeared during 1970 in Essays in Evolution and Genetics, a festschrift issued as a supple ment to Evolutionary Biology in his honor. [A complete career summary and bibliography appear at the end of the present volume.] Consequently, I shall restrict my remarks to the 1940s when Dobzhansky was a member of the Zoology Department at Columbia University. "The eighth floor of Schermerhorn Hall," L. C. Dunn wrote on Dobzhansky's 70th birthday, "had a north end where the flies were and a south end furnished with mice, and in between a seminar room and laboratory. There the distances were short and the doors open and the coffee pot busy." Those were splendid days for evolutionary biology. Dobzhansky's Genetics and the Origin oj Species had already appeared in 1937. Without having been exposed to the then-existing "classical" training in evolution, it is impossible to appreciate the impact this book had on evolutionary thought. I sensed this impact somewhat because, during my senior year at Columbia College, Professor A. W. Pollister insisted that I read Genetics and the Origin oj Species before he would introduce me to Dobzhansky regarding a summer assistantship. In it I encountered for the first time as a zoology major a logical, rather than verbal, analysis of complex biological problems. In Britain, the development of evolutionary thought was being sum marized by Julian Huxley in Evolution: the Modern Synthesis. In the United States, this synthesis was summarized in a series of texts published by the Columbia University Press. Ernst Mayr's Systematics and the Origin oj Species appeared in 1942. George Gaylord Simpson's Tempo and Mode in Evolution appeared in 1944. Once more, the enormous changes being vii viii In Memoriam wrought in evolutionary concepts can be illustrated: one of the senior Columbia professors presented his complimentary copy of Tempo and Mode to a graduate student with the admission that he could not under stand what it was about. Because World War II intervened, G. Ledyard Stebbins' Variation and Evolution in Plants appeared only in 1950; by any account, however, it must also be included within Columbia's contribution to the "modern synthesis." During World War II the synthesis was furthered through a series of bulletins issued by the National Research Council's Committee on Com mon Problems of Genetics, Paleontology, and Systematics. These bulletins consisted of letters exchanged among outstanding biologists in which specific questions were posed and, to the extent possible, answers were given; Dobzhansky, of course, was an important contributor in these scholarly (and personal) exchanges. The function of this Committee (and more) was assumed by the Society for the Study of Evolution (of which Dobzhansky was elected President in 1951). The esteem with which Dobzhansky was held by his colleagues was revealed to me in a memorable way at the Army Air Base in Childress, Texas, when, as a stiffly erect Air Cadet, I introduced myself as a student of Dobzhansky's to the instructor on the Sperry bombsight, Lt. Wilson Stone. The magical name whisked me into Stone's inner office where, concealed from the eyes of high ranking officers but still subjected to the constant roar of aircraft, we spent an entire afternoon enthusiastically discussing the genetics of sexual isolation between and the evolution of various Drosophila species. Except for the war and the intense pain he felt over the invasion of his homeland, I suspect the '40s at Columbia were among Dobzhansky's hap piest years. He had excellent colleagues both in Schermerhorn Hall (includ ing Marcus M. Rhoades of the Botany Department) and at the American Museum of Natural History. Outstanding American and European biologists entering or leaving the country by way of New York City visited the genetics laboratories at Columbia University as a matter of course; visits by Muller, Sturtevant, Haldane, and Spurway stand out especially clearly in my mind. Finally, the Columbia graduate students of the pre- and postwar years were uniformly first rate; to tick off the names of these students is to tick off the names of nearly two dozen of today's outstanding geneticists. Those were good days not only for Dobzhansky but also for those of us who shared his life in Schermerhorn Hall. BRUCE WALLACE Preface The ninth volume of Evolutionary Biology represents a turning point in the history of this series. The death of Theodosius Dobzhansky was a blow to the whole field of evolutionary biology in general, and to his friends and colleagues, including the other two Editors. He played a central role in the selection of areas that were "ripe" for review papers, and his circle of friends, colleagues, and students was so wide that he could always find exactly the most appropriate author and then convince him that he should prepare the paper. Evolutionary Biology was founded in 1966 and the first volume published in 1967. Ten years-and several vicissitudes-later, it seems advisable to restate the original concept of this serial publication. The Preface of Volume 1 says, simply, We have conceived this serial as a forum in which critical reviews and com mentaries, as well as original papers and even controversial views, can be brought together to cover a broad range of interest with provocative discussion. Evolutionary Biology will provide research workers and students with an excep tional opportunity to read expert presentations of developments in areas of their field in which they are not specialists, and as specialists they will see how others assess these developments. An important feature is that contributions are not necessarily limited in length, subject, and other restrictions that usually prevail in basic research journals. This concept has not changed in the slightest degree, as a perusal of the present volume will show. However, one unwritten policy should be made much more explicit, as it was not touched upon in the statement just quoted: that contributions of high quality will be considered and accepted if they are submitted without invitation. Although most of the papers published earlier resulted from editorial invitation, that procedure was followed simply to ensure an adequate supply of contributions for a rela tively new serial. We therefore invite our colleagues to submit chapters that fall within the quoted concept and the current standards for Evolutionary Biology. The recent hiatus in the annual appearance of this series was due to events beyond the Editors' control involving a change in publishers. Under ix x Preface the present publishers, this series has been published efficiently and has appeared annually and will do so in the future. The original preface of this series closed with a philosophical thought that is as apt today as it was in 1967: In summary, Evolutionary Biology will serve to integrate a large and complex area of science that has previously been characterized more by its tendency toward divisiveness than toward synthesis. THE EDITORS Contents 1. Chromosome, DNA and Plant Evolution G. Ledyard Stebbins Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Variation in Nuclear DNA Content and Its Significance. . . . . . . . . 2 Increases in DNA Content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Duplication-Differentiation Cycle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Significance of Polyploidy and Polyteny . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Polyteny and Endopolyploidy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Variation in DNA Content per Chromosome without Correlated Change in Structural Complexity ................... 8 Correlations between Nuclear DNA Content, Mitotic Cycle, and Cellular Proliferation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 14 Environmental Induction of Changes in DNA Content ........ 14 Differentiation of Nuclear DNA with Respect to Structure and Function ..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 15 The Linear Differentiation of Metaphase Chromosomes ......... 17 Principal Techniques for Analyzing Chromosome Structure and Organization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 18 Locations of Differential Segments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 19 Relationship of Banding Patterns to the Molecular Structure of Chromatin ...................................... 20 Application of These Techniques to Problems of Taxonomy and Population Genetics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 22 Fine Structure of Chromatin at the Molecular Level ............ 23 Acidic Proteins as Regulators of Gene Action and Cell Proliferation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 26 Some Unanswered Questions and Opportunities for Further Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 27 Some General Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 28 References ............................................... 28 xi
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