Look Inside Look Inside Evolution by Douglas Emlen; Carl Zimmer - Third Edition, 2020 from Macmillan Student Store
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Evolution

Making Sense of LifeThird Edition ©2020 Douglas Emlen; Carl Zimmer

Evolutionary Biologist, Douglas Emlen and Science Writer, Carl Zimmer continue to improve their widely-praised evolution textbook. Emlen, an award-winning evolutionary biologist at the University of Montana, has infused Evolution: Making Sense of Life with the technical rigor and concept...

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Look Inside Look Inside Evolution by Douglas Emlen; Carl Zimmer - Third Edition, 2020 from Macmillan Student Store

Helping students make sense of evolution

Evolutionary Biologist, Douglas Emlen and Science Writer, Carl Zimmer continue to improve their widely-praised evolution textbook. Emlen, an award-winning evolutionary biologist at the University of Montana, has infused Evolution: Making Sense of Life with the technical rigor and conceptual depth that today’s biology majors require. Zimmer, an award-winning New York Times columnist, brings compelling storytelling to the book, bringing evolutionary research to life through a narrative sure to capture the attention of evolution students.

With riveting stories about evolutionary biologists at work everywhere from the Arctic to tropical rainforests to hospital wards, the book is a reading adventure designed to grab the imagination of students, showing them exactly why it is that evolution makes such brilliant sense of life.

The new edition of Evolution: Making Sense of Life is now supported in SaplingPlus. Created and supported by the author and other educators, SaplingPlus’s instructional online homework drives student success and saves educators’ time. Automatically graded homework problem contains hints, answer-specific feedback, and solutions to ensure that students find the help they need.

Features

Compelling narrative: Throughout Evolution, the authors present stories about evolutionary biologists and how they’ve advanced our understanding of the history of life. We recount how these scientists set out to test hypotheses, how they developed experiments or went in search of fossils, and how they interpreted their results. This is a book designed to be read, rather than just a reference text.

Strong pedagogy designed to help students master the most difficult concepts in evolutionary biology
Fundamental concepts are presented step-by-step and revisited in later chapters to give students opportunities to deepen their understanding

Mathematical coverage is integrated throughout the text in select boxes, allowing instructors to cover as much or as little detail as needed for their course. Quantitative concepts are explained clearly through the narrative, without solely relying on equations as an explanation, which can be intimidating to some students.

SaplingPlus introduces exciting new videos that augment the book coverage of topics many students find difficult. These include:

  • Seven Whiteboard Videos (mathematical tutorial videos) walk students through the most difficult quantitative reasoning in evolution, including Hardy-Weinberg, mathematical models of drift, quantitative inheritance, and the breeder’s equation—all written and presented by Bronwyn Bleakley, associate professor of biology at Stonehill College and former National Science Foundation international research fellow.
    Animated Concept Tutorial Videos for this edition further explain difficult topics, including reading phylogenetic trees, natural selection and population size, mechanisms of speciation, and genetic drift.

SaplingPlus highlights also include:

  • Additional content and assessment to expand on the quantitative side of evolution.
  • Automatically graded homework problems with hints, answer-specific feedback, and fully worked solutions so that students don’t get stuck and can learn from their mistakes.
  • The HUB for active learning which houses discussion activities, assignments for primary literature, in-class handouts, and other resources to make it even easier to engage your students.

New to This Edition

The new edition of Evolution: Making Sense of Life is now supported in SaplingPlus. Created and supported by the author and other educators, SaplingPlus’s instructional online homework drives student success and saves educators’ time. Automatically graded homework problem contains hints, answer-specific feedback, and solutions to ensure that students find the help they need. Fully loaded with our interactive e-Book book and all student and instructor resources, SaplingPlus has a variety of assessments, videos, and animations aligned with each chapter of the text. LearningCurve adaptive quizzing helps students prepare for class and drives them back to the text to reinforce their learning.

SaplingPlus introduces exciting new videos that augment the book coverage of topics many students find difficult. These include:

  • Seven Whiteboard Videos (mathematical tutorial videos) walk students through the most difficult quantitative reasoning in evolution, including Hardy-Weinberg, mathematical models of drift, quantitative inheritance, and the breeder’s equation—all written and presented by Bronwyn Bleakley, associate professor of biology at Stonehill College and former National Science Foundation international research fellow.
  • Animated Concept Tutorial Videos for this edition further explain difficult topics, including reading phylogenetic trees, natural selection and population size, mechanisms of speciation, and genetic drift.

SaplingPlus highlights also include:

  • Additional content and assessment to expand on the quantitative side of evolution.
  • Automatically graded homework problems with hints, answer-specific feedback, and fully worked solutions so that students don’t get stuck and can learn from their mistakes.
  • The HUB for active learning which houses discussion activities, assignments for primary literature, in-class handouts, and other resources to make it even easier to engage your students.

Updated scientific research in every chapter

  • Rearranged Chapters 8 through 10 so that discussion of history of genes and adaptation fall immediately after quantitative genetics allowing for a more cohesive story of the science.
  • Updated coverage and treatment of: early Earth, physical linkage, linkage disequilibrium, and inversions maintaining linkage disequilibrium, gene control regions, geological processes that drive variance, macroevolution of individual clades as a way to observe long-term evolutionary trends,
 flexible behavior in animals with focus on new research on synaptic plasticity,  evolving pathogens, and more.

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Table of Contents

1  The Whale and the Virus: How Scientists Study Evolution 1 

2  From Natural Philosophy to Darwin: A Brief History of Evolutionary Ideas 28
3  What the Rocks Say: How Geology and Paleontology Reveal the History of Life 52 

4  The Tree of Life: How Biologists Use Phylogeny to Reconstruct the Deep Past 

5  Raw Material: Heritable Variation Among Individuals 140 

6  The Ways of Change: Drift and Selection 176 

7  Beyond Alleles: Quantitative Genetics and the Evolution of Phenotypes 226
8  The History in Our Genes 264 

9  From Genes to Traits: The Evolution of Genetic Networks and Development 308 

10  Natural Selection: Empirical Studies in the Wild 352 

11  Sex: Causes and Consequences 390 

12  After Conception: The Evolution of Life History and Parental Care 434 

13  The Origin of Species 466 

14  Macroevolution: The Long Run 508 

15  Intimate Partnerships: How Species Adapt to Each Other 548 

16  Brains and Behavior 588 

17  Human Evolution: A New Kind of Ape 632 

18  Evolutionary Medicine 684 


Carl Zimmer

Carl Zimmer is one of the country’s leading science writers. A columnist for The New York Times and a regular contributor to magazines like Scientific American and National Geographic, he is the author of thirteen books, including Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea and A Planet of Viruses. Zimmer is a lecturer at Yale University, where he teaches science writing. He is a three-time winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award and the winner of the National Academies Communication Award. You can learn more at the author's website: www.carlzimmer.com.

Douglas J. Emlen

Douglas J. Emlen is the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering from the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House, multiple research awards from the National Science Foundation, including their five-year CAREER award, and a Young Investigator Prize and the E. O. Wilson Naturalist Award from the American Society of Naturalists. His research has been featured in outlets including the New York Times and National Public Radio’s Fresh Air. He is a professor at the University of Montana.

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