The essential one-volume reference to evolutionThe Princeton Guide to Evolution is a comprehensive, concise, and authoritative reference to the major subjects and key concepts in evolutionary biology, from genes to mass extinctions. Edited by a distinguished team of evolutionary biologists, with contributions from leading researchers, the guide contains some 100 clear, accurate, and up-to-date articles on the most important topics in seven major areas: phy...

**The past, present, and future of the world's most popular and beloved pet, from a leading evolutionary biologist and great cat lover."Engaging and wide-ranging ... The Cat's Meow is a readable and informed exploration of the wildcat that lurks within Fluffy." —The Washington Post**The domestic cat—your cat—has, from its evolutionary origins in Africa, been transformed in comparatively little time into one of the most successful and diverse speci...

A major new book overturning our assumptions about how evolution worksEarth’s natural history is full of fascinating instances of convergence: phenomena like eyes and wings and tree-climbing lizards that have evolved independently, multiple times. But evolutionary biologists also point out many examples of contingency, cases where the tiniest change—a random mutation or an ancient butterfly sneeze—caused evolution to take a completely different course. What role do...

The Princeton Guide to Ecology is a concise, authoritative one-volume reference to the field's major subjects and key concepts. Edited by eminent ecologist Simon Levin, with contributions from an international team of leading ecologists, the book contains more than ninety clear, accurate, and up-to-date articles on the most important topics within seven major areas: autecology, population ecology, communities and ecosystems, landscapes and the biosphere, conservation biology, ecos...

Timely and provocative reflections on the future of the wild in an increasingly human worldThe Heart of the Wild brings together some of today’s leading scientists, humanists, and nature writers to offer a thought-provoking meditation on the urgency of learning about and experiencing our wild places in an age of rapidly expanding human impacts.These engaging essays present nuanced and often surprising perspectives on the meaning and value of “wildn...

Robert H. MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson's The Theory of Island Biogeography, first published by Princeton in 1967, is one of the most influential books on ecology and evolution to appear in the past half century. By developing a general mathematical theory to explain a crucial ecological problem--the regulation of species diversity in island populations--the book transformed the science of biogeography and ecology as a whole. In The Theory of Island Biogeography Revisited

An authoritative exploration of why understanding evolution is crucial to human life todayIt is easy to think of evolution as something that happened long ago, or that occurs only in "nature," or that is so slow that its ongoing impact is virtually nonexistent when viewed from the perspective of a single human lifetime. But we now know that when natural selection is strong, evolutionary change can be very rapid. In this book, some of the world's leading scientists ...

**The past, present, and future of the world's most popular and beloved pet, from a leading evolutionary biologist and great cat lover."Engaging and wide-ranging ... The Cat's Meow is a readable and informed exploration of the wildcat that lurks within Fluffy." —The Washington Post**The domestic cat—your cat—has, from its evolutionary origins in Africa, been transformed in comparatively little time into one of the most successful and diverse speci...

A major new book overturning our assumptions about how evolution worksEarth’s natural history is full of fascinating instances of convergence: phenomena like eyes and wings and tree-climbing lizards that have evolved independently, multiple times. But evolutionary biologists also point out many examples of contingency, cases where the tiniest change—a random mutation or an ancient butterfly sneeze—caused evolution to take a completely different course. What role do...

As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet's history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet's five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future.Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Bra...

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZEONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEARA NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERA NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALISTThe 10th-anniversary edition of the instant classic, The Sixth Extinction, now with a new epilogue. Kolbert blends intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes.

“A beautiful and very important book.”—Lewis Wolpert, American ScientistFor over a century, opening the black box of embryonic development was the holy grail of biology. Evo Devo—Evolutionary Developmental Biology—is the new science that has finally cracked open the box. Within the pages of his rich and riveting book, Sean B. Carroll explains how we are discovering that complex life is ironically much simpler than anyone ever expected.