Title: Biochemistry, Physiological Ecology, and Population Genetics-the Mechanistic Tools of Evolutionary Biology
Abstract: Physiological ecology emerged in the 1950s from the blending of ecology into what was then known as 'comparative physiology' (Prosser & Brown, 1961; Bartholomew, 1987). Physiological ecologists have often dealt with the mechanisms underlying function of animals, plants, or their organs as 'black boxes', and remained aloof from modern molecular approaches to such mechanisms (Powers, 1987). They have often avoided explicit attention to general evolutionary issues, preferring more specific studies of organismal properties in relation to habitat, or taken a typological view, regarding intra-population variation in their study systems as 'noise' rather than as the very stuff of evolutionary refinement of the adaptations they uncover (Bennett, 1987; Feder, 1987). Nonetheless, at its best, the field has pointed the way to a multi-level, mechanistic study of adaptive processes. Here I argue that the time is ripe for broader deployment of such study, combining traditional approaches of physiological ecology with biochemistry and with population genetics to address general evolutionary problems. Modern metabolic analysis can open physiological black boxes, allowing study of the mechanistic nature of diverse metabolic architectures under a range of biological demands (e.g. Watt, 1985, 1986; Powers, 1987). In addition to conceptual power, advances of modern biochemistry and
Publication Year: 1991
Publication Date: 1991-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 36
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