Origin and Evolution of Biodiversity, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2018

The book includes 19 selected contributions presented at the 21^st Evolutionary Biology Meeting, which took place in Marseille in September 2017. The chapters are grouped into the following five categories:

·       Genome/Phenotype Evolution

·       Self/Nonself Evolution

·       Origin of Biodiversity

·       Origin of Life

·       Concepts

The annual Evolutionary Biology Meetings in Marseille serve to gather leading evolutionary biologists and other scientists using evolutionary biology concepts, e.g. for medical research. The aim of these meetings is to promote the exchange of ideas to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations. Offering an up-to-date overview of recent findings in the field of evolutionary biology, this book is in invaluable source of information for scientists, teachers and advanced students.

Pmela and Tyrp1b contribute to melanophore variation in Mexican cavefish.- Adaptive evolution of yeast under heat stress and genetic reconstruction to generate thermotolerant yeast.- The domestication syndrome in Phaseolus crop plants: a review of two key domestication traits.- Tracing the Evolutionary Origin of the Gut-Brain-Axis.- Mini bioreactors as tools for adaptive laboratory evolution for antibiotic drug resistance and evolutionary tuning of bacterial optogenetic circuits.- Deciphering the evolution of vertebrate immune cell types with single-cell RNA-seq.- Evolutionary Impacts of Alternative Transposition.- Allorecognition and stem cell parasitism: a tale of competition, selfish genes and greenbeards in a basal chordate.- How to become selfish: Evolution and adaptation to self-fertilization in plants.- Immunoglobulin-like domains have an evolutionarily conserved role during gamete fusion in C. elegans and mouse.- Feralisation – the understudied counterpoint to domestication.- Post-Glacial Colonization of Northern Europe by Reptiles.- The Relative Roles of Selection and Drift in Phenotypic Variation: Some Like it Hot, Some Like it Wet.- Metagenomic approaches highlight the organization and dynamics of plankton at the species level.- Ion-molecule Reactions as a Possible Synthetic Route for the Formation of Prebiotic Molecules in Space.- Did Gene Expression Co-evolve with Gene Replication?.- Biological dogmas in relation to the origin of evolutionary novelties.- A Proposed Terminology of Convergent Evolution.- Natura fecit saltum: punctuationalism pervades the natural sciences.

Pierre Pontarotti

Laboratoire Evolution Biologique et Modélisation, CNRS

Université Aix Marseille

Marseille, France