Speciation

Over the last two decades, the study of speciation has expanded
from a modest backwater of evolutionary biology into a large and
vigorous discipline. Thus, the literature on speciation, as well as the
number of researchers and students working in this area, has
grown explosively. Despite these developments, there has been no
book-length treatment of speciation in many years. As a result,
both the seasoned scholar and the newcomer to evolutionary
biology had no ready guide to the recent literature on speciation-a
body of work that is enormous, scattered, and increasingly
technical. Although several excellent symposium volumes have
recently appeared, these collections do not provide a unified,
critical, and up-to-date overview of the field. Speciation is designed
to fill this gap.

Aimed at professional biologists, graduate students, and advanced
undergraduates, Speciation covers both plants and animals (the
first book on this subject to do so), and deals with all relevant areas
of research, including biogeography, field work, systematics,
theory, and genetic and molecular studies. It gives special
emphasis to topics that are either controversial or the subject of
active research, including sympatric speciation, reinforcement, the
role of hybridization in speciation, the search for genes causing
reproductive isolation, and mounting evidence for the role of
natural and sexual selection in the origin of species. The authors do
not hesitate to take stands on these and other controversial issues.
This critical and scholarly book will be invaluable to researchers in
evolutionary biology and is also ideal for a graduate-level course
on speciation.