NATURAL HISTORY FIRST (BUT DON'T STOP THERE)

Abstract

This quote from Agassiz welcomes visitors to the main entrance of the Ruthven Museums Building at the University of Michigan, beseeching them to collect their own data and draw their own conclusions. The sentiment has inspired generations of evolutionary biologists, who continue the long tradition of deductive science epitomized by Darwin and Wallace. The fundamental questions about evolution have always been borne from direct observation of, and curiosity about, nature. In the best cases, the process leads to elegant tests of hypotheses and formulations of general theories. No practitioners of this art of investigation have done it with more rigor, provided deeper insight, or better illuminated the aesthetic qualities of science, than Peter and Rosemary Grant. It is fitting, then, that the careers of the Grants (while showing no signs of ebbing toward a twilight!) should be celebrated by assembling a fine cadre of scientific naturalists to share their own observations and deductions. In Search of the Causes of Evolution is a collection of essays based on presentations at a symposium organized by Princeton University on the occasion of the Grants’ official “retirement.” The chapters are remarkably true to the theme that observation leads the way to detailed dissections of the underlying mechanisms of evolution. The author list represents some of the most significant contributors at the forefront of evolutionary research. Although readers will recognize most of the study systems (e.g., anoles, beach mice, dung beetles, sticklebacks even make two appearances), the authors generally have done an admirable job of resisting the temptation to rehash old work and have contributed new data or syntheses to the volume. The resultant book thereby serves as a low-altitude reconnaissance flight over some of the most exciting current research in evolutionary ecology. The ground covered by the essays is extensive, as it should be under a title purporting to encompass the causes of evolution. As anyone who has taught an introductory evolution course can attest, the scope of topics that we seek to explain is staggering. One person’s bread and butter might not even be included on another’s list. The Grants have at least attempted to span this space by including chapters across the spectrum from the evolution of early earth environments (Andrew Knoll and David Johnston) and macroevolutionary patterns of diversification (David Jablonski) to the search for “behavior genes” (Hopi Hoekstra) and the population genetics of island endemism (Trevor Price and colleagues). True to the tradition of the Grants’ own work, however, the majority of essays emphasizes the interplay of selection and genetics as drivers of biodiversity. This is a collection that is unapologetically adaptationist in its perspective on evolutionary mechanisms. So what do we learn about where the grander field of evolutionary biology is headed when we collect marquis names with license to write about whatever they want? First, evolutionary research is not dominated by traditional model systems. Indeed,