Evolutionary Biology occupies a unique and valuable place in the evolutionary

literature. More generous in giving authors space to develop their ideas than
Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, as eclectic in its range as Oxford
Surveys in Evolutionary Biology, this senior member of the trio of major outlets
for reviews and essays on evolutionary topics enters with this volume its third
decade of useful service to the field. Vol. 21 is distinguished by sets of papers
examining both sides of two controversies. The first addresses the role of sexual
selection in speciation, in particular Kaneshiros claim that asymmetrical sexual
isolation provides information on the direction of evolution. Kaneshiros
hypothesis states that females of ancestral species should be sexually more
isolated from males of derived species than are females of derived species from
males of the ancestral species. He reasoned that during a founder event, drift
would cause the loss of elements of male courtship behavior. These deficient
males would be rejected by females in the ancestral population, but the females
in the derivative population would accept the ancestral males whose behavioral
repertoire would include all elements in the repertoire of the derived males.
Ehrman and Wasserman criticize the claims of directionality and of generality
made for the hypothesis, as well as the evidence used to support it - mate choice
experiments do not always reveal which sex chooses, and male choice may play
a larger role than previously suspected. The replies by DeSalle and Templeton
and Kaneshiro and Giddings accept several points, reject others, and result in a
more precise definition of the conditions under which one would expect the
hypothesis to hold. Given the increased interest in the role of sexual selection in
speciation, it is a shame that none of the authors saw fit to discuss Landes
(1981), Vrbas (1985), or Patersons (1985) ideas on the subject. The second set
of papers addresses Sibly and Ahlquists use of DNA hybridization to provide
phylogenetic information for birds. Cracraft makes several critical points: in only
a few cases were reciprocal hybrids made, the method assumes uniform rates of
molecular evolution in all lineages, the uncertainties in and the incompleteness
of the data do not justify the precision of the trees produced, and the trees are
necessarily phenetic. Sibly, Ahlquist, and Sheldon reply that they have given up
the assumption of uniform rates of divergence, that the problem of reciprocity is
not as serious as it is claimed to be, and that one can construct phylogenetic
trees with an incomplete data matrix. Cracrafts critique was well enough argued
to make me doubt the 84 reliability of Siblys more general claims. While I would
like the technique to work because it saves so much labor, I will not believe that
it really does work until I have seen its results confirmed by the DNA sequence
data that are beginning to come in. Sultans essay on phenotypic plasticity in
plants emphasizes the renewed interest in phenotypic plasticity and reaction
norms (cf. Schlichting, 1986). Sultan aims to demonstrate that both the ecotype
concept of Clausen and the partitioning of variation into genetic and
environmental variances through ANOVA inadequately represent the sources of
variation in plant populations. Sultan feels that a more sophisticated notion of
sources of phenotypic variation is needed, and that the concept of adaptive
norms of reaction provides it. While I could not agree more, I would like to note
that the concept originated with Woltereck (1909), not with Johanssen (1911) or
Schmalhausen (1949). (In his desire to preserve the genotype theory of
inheritance, Johanssen actually misinterpreted what Woltereck had said about
reaction norms.) Quantitative predictions of reaction norms can be made when
the traits involved are life-history traits (Stearns and Koella, 1986), but it is not
yet clear that one can treat an entire reaction norm technically as a single trait
with a heritability. The renewed interest in phenotypic plasticity will result in well-
deserved citations of Sultans article. Schaeffers article on deuterostome
phylogeny combines the methods of Haeckel and Hennig to produce a cladogram
for echinoderms, hemichordates, urochordates, cephalochordates, and craniata
based on analysis of developmental characters. It is a beautiful piece of
systematics whose timely publication will make later comparison with DNA
sequence data all the more interesting. In this case, the cladogram does not
depart much from the traditional view. That will not always be the case. The
large-scale structure of life has been re-opened for discussion, the new methods
of systematics and molecular biology provide new information and more rigorous
analysis, and the results may well shake our most basic assumptions about
relationships. Chalines article summarizes two decades of careful work on the
evolution of voles and lemmings. His approach is distinguished by a rare
combination of paleontology and neontology. The result is an exceptional data
set in which the relative contributions of anagenesis and cladogenesis to
morphological change can be quantitatively estimated. He concludes that
phyletic gradualism (= anagenesis) is responsible for 52.5 % of total
morphological change in the clade. All those interested in the pros and cons of
punctuated equilibria should take note. Parsons emphasizes that both the
genetics and the physiology of a population changes when it is put under stress,
that this has consequences for phenotypic variation, and therefore that natural
selection will operate differently, and perhaps primarily, on populations that are
near the limits of their range of physiological tolerance. The consequences of this
notion for the expression of additive genetic variance and covariance need to be
explored systematically. The volume ends with a useful review of cricket life
cycles by Masaki and Walker. Their large data set and their proximate
interpretation of the variation is waiting for an entomologist skilled at
demographic theory to interpret cricket life cycles as a case study in life-history
evolution in seasonal environments. It may be a mistake to inter- 85 pret
everything as an adaptation, but it is surely just as much a mistake to interpret
nothing in so large a data set as one.

References

Johanssen, W. 1911. The genotype concept of heredity. Am. Nat. 45: 129-159.
Lande, R. 1981. Models of speciation by sexual selection on quantitative traits.
Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 78: 3721-3725. Paterson, H. E. H. 1985. The Recognition
Concept of species. In E. Vrba (ed.), Species and speciation. Transvaal Museum
Monogr. No. 4, pp. 21-30. Schmalhausen, I. I. 1949. Factors of Evolution.
Blakiston, Philadelphia. (Reissued in paperback in 1986 by University of Chicago
Press.) Stearns, S. C., and J. Koella. 1986. The evolution of phenotypic plasticity
in life-history traits: Predictions of reaction norms for age and size at maturity.
Evolution 40: 8933913. Vrba, E. 1985. Introductory comments on species and
speciation. In E. Vrba (ed.), Species and speciation. Transvaal Museum Monogr.
No. 4, pp. IX-XVIII. Woltereck, R. 1909. Weitere experimentelle Untersuchungen
uber Artveranderung, speziell iiber das Wesen quantitativer Artenunterschiede
bei Daphniden. Verh. Deutsch Zool. Gesell. 1909: 110-172.