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1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus

Author: Costanza, Robert

Source: BioScience, 56(10) : 846-847

Published By: American Institute of Biological Sciences

URL: https://doi.org/10.1641/0006-3568(2006)56[846:AEEIHD]2.0.CO;2

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Fall Focus on Books

1491: New Revelations of the Americasbefore Columbus. Charles C. Mann.Knopf, New York, 2005. 478 pp., illus.$30.00 (ISBN 140004006X cloth).

In studying the complex ways that human societies on Earth have inter-

acted with their environments, we onlyhave one experiment to observe—or dowe? There were at least 14 millennia ofEarth history during which two sepa-rate, isolated experiments in the devel-opment of agriculture, complex states,trade, disease, resource exploitation, em-pires, sustainability, and collapse wererunning in parallel in the Eastern andWestern Hemispheres. In 1492 these twoexperiments were joined, with disastrousconsequences for the inhabitants of theWestern Hemisphere. But new revela-tions of the history of this hemisphere be-fore 1491 are significantly expanding ourunderstanding of the factors that shapedhuman and environmental coevolution.

In 1491: New Revelations of the Amer-icas before Columbus, science writerCharles Mann takes his readers on acompelling and readable tour of theWestern Hemisphere as it would havelooked in 1491. Fifty years ago, almost allhistorians would have provided a veryshort and simple tour. According toMann, they would have described “twocontinents of wilderness, populated byscattered bands whose ways of life hadchanged little since the Ice Age. The soleexceptions would have been Mexico andPeru, where the Maya and the ancestorsof the Inka were crawling toward thefoothills of Civilization.” This vision ofthe pre-Columbian Western Hemispherestill pervades common understanding.But our knowledge of the state of theAmericas in 1491 has expanded dra-matically, and Mann’s tour conjures ahemisphere that is almost unrecognizablecompared with the picture painted byearlier historians.

In 1492 Columbus arrived bearing Eu-ropean pathogens. This and subsequentpathogen deliveries would ultimately

devastate the huge human populationof the Americas and leave subsequentEuropean explorers and settlers with themistaken impression that the entire hemi-sphere was a lightly populated wilder-ness. Mann presents the accumulatingevidence that, because of the uniquelysusceptible genetic makeup of the pre-Columbian human population in theAmericas, huge portions (as much as 95percent in some cases) of native popula-tions were lost to European diseases theyhad never before encountered. It turnsout that Native Americans have far less diversity than Europeans in their humanleukocyte antigens (HLAs), molecules

inside most human cells that are essen-tial to one of the body’s main defensesagainst pathogens. European populationsin the 1400s had diverse HLA profiles,and this allowed a large percentage ofthem to resist most diseases, even theplague. But Native American popula-tions had HLA profiles dominated by avery small number of types. The resultwas that they were unusually susceptibleto Old World diseases.

Using this information, along with re-ports of the sizes of the decimated nativepopulations remaining when settlers ar-rived, leads to much larger estimates ofthe human population of the Americas in1491. For example, Mann argues that in1491, the central valley of Mexico wasthe most densely populated place onEarth, and that the Amazon basin washome to a human population in the mil-lions, thriving on a complex, stable agro-forestry rather than slash-and-burnagriculture.

The details of these and many othernewly emerging stories about the histo-ries of societies large and small acrossthe Americas, from the Iroquois in the

northeastern United States to the Inkaalong the southern Pacific coast, make forcompelling and engaging reading. One ofthe more interesting stories has to dowith the development of maize (corn) asa staple grain in the Americas. Europeansdomesticated wild grasses through se-lective breeding of a common mutationthat causes the seeds not to shatter (release from the stem) until they can beharvested, but unlike European grains,corn’s direct wild ancestor has never beenfound. And unlike European grains,maize cannot propagate itself but re-quires human intervention. The mostlikely explanation, according to Mann, is

that domestic corn was created, almostfrom scratch, either as a hybridizationof two related species or as the deter-mined selection over at least a decade ofwhat seems to be the closest existing an-cestor of maize (teosinte, a plant withno food value in its wild state). The de-tails of this story are fascinating and stillnot settled. Mann expertly weaves to-gether both the technical details of the re-search and the personal details of theindividuals involved in the continuingsearch for the origins of maize.

Another insight that flows fromMann’s synthesis is that the idea of“wilderness”that has motivated environ-mentalists needs to be rethought. The“wilderness” that Europeans discoveredin America was the result of millennia ofextensive and intensive interactions between the environment and humanpopulations as large as those in Europe atthe time. The emerging history of bothhemispheres is one that leads toward amore integrated view of humans as major components of the ecosystemsthey were part of over a range of spatialand temporal scales.

An Extraordinary Experiment in Human Development

846 BioScience • October 2006 / Vol. 56 No. 10 www.biosciencemag.org

The “wilderness” that Europeans discovered in America was the result of millennia

of extensive and intensive interactions between the environment and human

populations as large as those in Europe at the time.


Fall Focus on Books

But what is perhaps most compellingabout this emerging overall history ofthe Americas is its degree of parallel withthe history of the Eastern Hemisphere.Even though there were huge differencesin the biogeography, native plant and an-imal resources, and other features of thetwo hemispheres (Diamond 1997), thedevelopment of human societies followedroughly similar and parallel paths, and atroughly the same rates. Mann marshalsthe accumulating evidence that ratherthan lagging by several centuries to mil-lennia, as previously thought, human so-cieties in the Western Hemisphere wereat roughly the same state of developmentas in the Eastern Hemisphere in 1491.Had populations in the Western Hemi-sphere not been especially susceptible toeastern pathogens, things may haveturned out quite differently. Had thegerms not done such a thorough job, it isdoubtful, in Mann’s view, whether theguns and steel of the Europeans couldhave overcome the Native Americans.

Of course, these two grand hemi-spherical experiments in human devel-opment were not controlled or wellmonitored, and we have to piece togetherthe results from the partial fragmentsleft behind.We cannot test hypotheses di-rectly and must rely on comparativeanalysis, “experiments of opportunity,”and a “weight of evidence” approach.But this synthesis can now make use of agrowing ability to assemble an integratedhuman and environmental history. Forexample, reconstructions of global cli-mate based on ice core data now revealthat the period from about 14 thousandyears ago was an exceptionally warm andstable period in Earth’s climate history(Dahl-Jensen et al. 1998). Why is it that,even though biologically modern hu-mans were around for more than a hun-dred thousand years, agriculture did notarise until a few thousand years into thisstable period? And it arose more or lesssimultaneously and independently (ac-cording to Mann’s synthesis) in both theEastern and Western Hemispheres. It isclear that simple linear cause-and-effectexplanations are insufficient to explaincomplex phenomena like the emergenceof agriculture, but it is also clear that a key

prerequisite for agriculture is a relativelystable and predictable climate.

Continuing efforts to synthesize andintegrate human and environmental his-tory will shed more light on this andmany other questions about the emer-gence, development, and sustainabilityor collapse of human societies (Flannery1994, Diamond 2004, Costanza et al.2006). Mann has made a substantial con-tribution to this important field of in-quiry, a field that will help us create amore sustainable and desirable future bybetter understanding the complex wayshumans have interacted with their envi-ronment in the past.

ROBERT COSTANZARobert Costanza (e-mail:

[email protected]) is GordonGund Professor of Ecological Economics

and director of the Gund Institute of

Ecological Economics, Rubenstein Schoolof Environment and Natural Resources,

University of Vermont, Burlington,VT 05405.

References citedCostanza R, Graumlich LJ, Steffen W, eds. 2006. Sus-

tainability or Collapse: An Integrated History

and Future of People on Earth. Cambridge

(MA): MIT Press. Dahlem Workshop Report

96. Forthcoming.

Dahl-Jensen D, Mosegaard K, Gundestrup N, Clow

GD, Johnsen SJ, Hansen AW, Balling N. 1998.

Past temperatures directly from the Greenland

Ice Sheet. Science 282: 268–271.

Diamond JM. 1997. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The

Fates of Human Societies. New York: Norton.

———. 2004. Collapse: How Societies Choose to

Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking.

Flannery TF. 1994. The Future Eaters: An Eco-

logical History of the Australasian Lands and

People. Port Melbourne (Australia): Reed Press.

www.biosciencemag.org October 2006 / Vol. 56 No. 10 • BioScience 847



LIVING WITH LARGE CARNIVORES

Coexisting with Large Carnivores:Lessons from Greater Yellowstone.Tim W. Clark, Murray B. Rutherford,and Denise Casey, eds. Island Press,Washington, DC, 2005. 290 pp., illus.$27.95 (ISBN 1597260053 paper).

Unlike a large number of recent bookson large carnivore biology, Coexist-

ing with Large Carnivores is about carni-vore management—or, more accurately,management of people who interact withcarnivores. Although the book coverssome biology, its main focus is on long-standing problems in conserving wolves,cougars, and grizzly bears south ofYellowstone National Park (YNP) inWyoming. The three-county area of Lin-coln, Sublette, and Fremont is a 57,000-square-kilometer wildland of world-renowned conservation significance.Combined with YNP, it is considered oneof the most important temperate-zoneecosystems on the planet. It is inhabitedby all of the North American large car-nivores, as well as one of the most diverse

arrays of ungulates found in the westernUnited States.

As editors Tim W. Clark, Murray B.Rutherford, and Denise Casey explain, theproblem centers on a clash between the“old West” and the “new West.” The “oldWest”view has long supported removingcarnivores from the landscape, mainlyto establish livestock but also, later, toreduce human hunters’ competition forgame. In the old West, agriculture, min-ing, logging, hunting, and other resourceextraction industries were predominant.The “new West”view, created by an influxof immigrants from other regions, valuesprimarily a nonextractive economy fea-turing scenery, wildlife observation, out-door recreation, and open space. To thisgroup, large carnivores symbolize wilder-ness and a healthy ecosystem.

Finding common ground betweenthese two positions has been nearly im-possible, and much of the discussionlacks reasonableness. The institutions inplace—both state and federal—havestruggled. Thus, the single overarchinggoal of Clark and colleagues’ book is tobreak this logjam using an enlightenedapproach that involves more people, tak-ing part more equally, in decisionmaking.

This places a huge responsibility for ad-ministrative restructuring on the agenciesthat manage wildlife.

Wolves, cougars, and grizzly bears arespecial wildlife management cases. All ofthem live over large areas, have low pop-ulation density, are hard to count, and killother animals people value. Data gath-ering is difficult and expensive; the datathat are available are often misused, andin other cases dismissed because somepeople claim the studies are rigged.Wyoming is also unique. With its vastopen spaces and the smallest human pop-ulation of any state, Wyoming is the waythe West once was, some say (Wilson1997). Rugged individualism is admiredand outsiders are not, and the govern-ment is disliked.

Coexisting with Large Carnivores cov-ers each carnivore separately and thenoffers common solutions. Each carni-vore has its own special set of issues. Forcougars, which are normally shy andreclusive, it was an especially visible fam-ily outside of Jackson Hole, Wyoming,that touched off the debate. A femaleand her three kittens were remarkablyvisible in a rock cave a short distancefrom town. Over 15,000 people saw them

Fall Focus on Books


during a 42-day period. At about thesame time, the Wyoming Game and FishDepartment raised the harvest quota ofcougars in the area.When questioned, thedepartment had trouble explaining therationale for the change, especially be-cause no one knew how many cougarsthere were. Public meetings proved to beineffective, as it seemed the course of ac-tion was predetermined, so the meetingwas perceived as a presentation of infor-mation rather than solicitation of input.To justify the approach, the departmentstated that management of cougarsshould not be based on public opinion.The end result? People became alienated,opposition hardened, a foundation sup-porting cougars sprang up, and overalltrust was lost.

Grizzly bears present similarly in-tractable issues. According to one esti-mate, only 25 to 50 bears were livingoutside YNP in 1970. In 1975, bears werelisted as threatened and given protectionunder the Endangered Species Act (ESA),an action that stockmen claimed wouldbankrupt them. Since the listing, the pop-ulation has grown and conflicts have in-creased. Livestock have been killed,sometimes in substantial numbers, andoccasionally people are attacked, injured,and even killed. The disposal of garbageis regulated, which some people considergovernment meddling. The future avail-ability of key natural foods for bears is de-bated, and any reduction would increasebears’ consumption of garbage. Threecounties have passed ordinances ban-ning grizzlies. Regulations on how stock-killing grizzlies are dealt with areunsatisfactory to livestock producers (notenough lethal control), and some grazingallotments have been lost.

Fearing that “rewilding” initiatives aredesigned to “kick people off the land,”re-sistance movements have formed. Con-servationists, on the other hand, believethat recovery has just begun and that thebear needs more room to roam to se-cure its population. The US Fish andWildlife Service (USFWS) is planning toremove ESA protection for the grizzlybear, a move that is opposed by someand embraced by others.

Wolves were reintroduced to YNP un-der the ESA in 1995 and 1996. Since then

the population has expanded into areasoutside YNP. Some livestock have beenkilled. A private group compensates pro-ducers for verified losses, but not for sus-pected losses or for the difficulties ofhaving wolves around. Concern hasarisen about the impacts of wolves onelk and moose populations. Hunting en-thusiasts have formed groups in all threestates that make up YNP (Idaho, Mon-tana, and Wyoming) requesting wolf con-trol or complete removal of wolves.Wyoming’s wolf management plan—arequirement to delist—was rejected bythe USFWS. Wyoming sued and lost andnow contemplates its next move. Delist-ing has been delayed indefinitely.

So what to do? Clark and colleaguesrecommend three main courses of ac-tion: (1) working from the bottom uprather than from the top down; (2)changing the perceived “meaning”of car-nivores, moving away from their historicand symbolic associations; and (3) re-arranging the structure of wildlife man-agement agencies to reflect changinghuman values. If the book can be criti-cized for anything, it is that it is repeti-tious, though perhaps intentionally so, toconvey the main message: Involve morepeople in real decisionmaking—don’tjust inform them of the decisions. Theirsecond recommendation deals with rid-ding carnivores of the baggage loadedon them by the government and the en-vironmentalists. Finally, Clark and hiscoauthors criticize the current emphasisin Wyoming wildlife management onconsumptive and traditional uses ofwildlife, the command-and-control ad-ministrative structure, and the inordi-nate weight given to expert opinion.

Would these recommendations work?I am most familiar with wolves, whichseem to be uniquely hated. I have seen theanger and emotion of local people. Whatemerges from my experience is the valueof one-on-one contact. But who has thetime? Just as important, when talkingone-on-one, you need to be very good atwhat you do, which means being knowl-edgeable about details, articulate, andable to roll with the punches. This will getyou a modicum of respect, but the skillscome only from time on the job. Onesummer’s work will barely get the locals

familiar with your name. You have toknow as much about the animals as theydo. So even if money were available tohire more people, few would have theskill and fortitude to confront the con-troversy. The USFWS and the WyomingGame and Fish Department have someveterans whom the public trusts, a vitalpoint that the book only lightly toucheson. How we can get more people whofunction like this is still unanswered.

One of the most successful programsI am involved with is horseback ridinginto the big-game hunting camps thatdot the boundary of YNP in the fall totalk about wolves. Although I havechanged few minds, I have opened linesof communication, reaching out deep inthe wilderness far from government of-fices. On a one-week trip I can visit onlytwo or three hunter camps, as they arewidely spaced. Carnivore recovery andmanagement will take a lot of work in-deed. This book charts the course; itslessons need wide acceptance and im-plementation.

DOUGLAS W. SMITHDouglas W. Smith (e-mail:

[email protected]) is leader of theWolf Project, Yellowstone National Park,

WY 82190.

Reference citedWilson MA. 1997. The wolf in Yellowstone: Science,

symbol, or politics? Society and Natural Re-

sources 10: 453–469.

WHY ARE ANIMALS SO HONEST?

The Evolution of Animal Communi-cation: Reliability and Deception inSignaling Systems. William A. Searcyand Stephen Nowicki. Princeton Uni-versity Press, Princeton, NJ, 2005. 270pp., illus. $39.50 (ISBN 0691070954paper).

Acampus mockingbird sits outsidemy window on a No Parking sign

and pours out a nearly continuous streamof song for hours. Such behavior exposes


Fall Focus on Books


him to predators and interferes with otherthings he might be doing (such as forag-ing), and anything that loud must con-sume a lot of energy. How has such anextraordinary and costly display evolved?We all know that birdsong is a form ofcommunication, but who is he talking to,what is he saying, and what do his lis-teners have to gain from paying attentionto him?

The Evolution of Animal Communica-tion addresses these perennial questions.The book is part of a consistently inter-esting series of publications from Prince-ton University Press, Monographs inBehavior and Ecology, edited by JohnKrebs and Tim Clutton-Brock. The two

authors of this volume, Steve Nowickifrom Duke University and Bill Searcyfrom the University of Miami, have dis-tinguished careers and hold endowedprofessorships at their respective uni-versities. They approach animal (pri-marily bird) communication fromdifferent perspectives, Nowicki by study-ing the mechanisms and neural substratesof song learning and production, andSearcy by examining the function of com-munication in mating systems. Togetherthey have a long-term, collaborative re-search program to study the proximatemechanisms and evolution of birdsong.In the present effort, they address oneof the thorniest problems in animal com-munication: To what extent are animalsignals reliable or deceptive, and how canwe possibly know the difference?

Those studying animal communica-tion have shifted their view over the years,from assuming that signals are coopera-tive to arguing that they are self-serving,exaggerated, and manipulative, akin tounregulated political advertising. Theperspective matters because differentsuites of traits evolve depending onwhether signals are mutualistic or self-ish. Today, scientists generally expect an-imals—even parents and offspring ormembers of a mated pair—to behaveselfishly, so we expect a lot of lying and

deception. The problem is that, contraryto these general expectations, signals areusually honest (i.e., they are reliable in-dicators of the signaler’s qualities or re-liable predictors of the signaler’s behavior,which the receiver benefits from know-ing). Deceptive signals, or cases in whichthe signaler benefits from giving mis-information to the receiver, are rare.As with human communication, “truthin advertising” appears to be the rule,but unlike human societies, most ani-mals do not have obvious policing mech-anisms to enforce truthfulness (althoughsome do!). So how does honest commu-nication evolve, and how is it maintained,in populations?

Behavioral ecologists have convergedon one theoretical framework for un-derstanding the evolution of honest sig-naling: Selection favors costly signalsbecause only high-quality individualscan afford to pay the costs of producingan honest signal. In The Evolution ofAnimal Communication, Searcy andNowicki carefully explore this idea. Theyevaluate predictions from theory using a number of carefully chosen, well-researched case studies, such as badges ofstatus in birds (e.g., the bib on housesparrows); weapon display in shrimp;and dominant call frequency in frogsand toads (lower calls are given by largermales). In each case, they evaluate theevidence that the signal contains infor-mation that is of value to the receiverand that the receiver responds. Since thereceiver’s response may arise from somefactor that is correlated with the signal,rather than from the signal itself, exper-imental manipulations are required tomake the study convincing. Next, Searcyand Nowicki determine whether the in-formation contained in the signal is re-liable (for example, whether the signal isa significant indicator of body size, whichis correlated with the ability of the sig-naler to win fights). In each case, the dif-ficulty comes in trying to understandwhy cheating (the deceptive use of the

signal) is so uncommon. In some casesthe signals are clearly costly in a way thatexplains their reliability, but in othercases the evidence for costs is just notthere, and yet the signaling system per-sists. It is conceivable that ongoing stud-ies may rescue the costly-signal theory,but the book left me with the impressionthat the present models are inadequate.Searcy and Nowicki argue that no one explanation is sufficient to understandsignal reliability and that multiple mech-anisms are needed.

The field of animal communicationis filled with metaphors, and it is hard toget away from using loaded terms like“deception,”“honesty,”“skepticism,”and“retaliation” when talking about signalsand their evolution. Although a little dis-tracting at times, the use of metaphors iswidespread in this field, and it would betoo cumbersome to develop separate,neutral terms for each idea or hypothe-sis. “Skepticism,” carefully defined andconsistently used, is a perfectly good wayto describe the behavior of hens as theyquickly learn to distinguish those roost-ers whose calls provide reliable informa-tion about the presence of food fromthose that are unreliable. Nonetheless,the reader must remember not to inferhumanlike cognition to the animals us-ing these signals. One always needs toknow the technical meaning of eachmetaphor and how it is being used. Thisbook does not examine either the moralor the cognitive implications of reliableor deceitful signals; it only tries to estab-lish how evolution has acted on signalingsystems.

In The Evolution of Animal Commu-nication, the authors cover a wide rangeof signal types, including begging, alarmcalls, food calls, mating displays, and ag-gressive signals, and they discuss the ev-idence for honesty, deceit, and costs ineach case. This is a clearly written,thoughtful, evenhanded treatment thatprovides a shortcut into a vast and com-plex literature. It is also quite technical,with explicit definitions of terms, de-scriptions of alternative models, and dis-cussions of experimental results. Thebook is a fascinating evaluation of thepresent state of reliability and deceptionin animal signaling systems. It would


Fall Focus on Books

Those studying animal communication have shifted their view over the years, from

assuming that signals are cooperative to arguing that they are self-serving,

exaggerated, and manipulative, akin to unregulated political advertising.


make a perfect, albeit somewhat contro-versial, focus for an honors biology orgraduate seminar course on animal com-munication.

H. JANE BROCKMANN H. Jane Brockmann (e-mail:

[email protected]) is a professor ofzoology at the University of Florida,

Gainesville, FL 32611.

THE EMERGENCE OF SHAPE

Mechanisms of Morphogenesis: TheCreation of Biological Form. Jamie A.Davies. Elsevier Academic Press,Burlington, MA, 2005. 374 pp., illus.$99.95 (ISBN 012204651X paper).

Jamie A. Davies is a reader in develop-mental cell biology at the University of

Edinburgh and editor in chief of thejournal Organogenesis. His research focuses on mammalian organs and in-tegrates practical, theoretical, and bio-informatics approaches to the subject.

In Mechanisms of Morphogenesis,Davies presents a detailed analysis of up-to-date literature on the mechanisms ofmorphogenesis (the generation of shape).He describes experimental examples fromanimals, plants, and fungi. The book is or-ganized by scale, beginning with the self-assembly of supramolecular complexesand the adaptive self-organization andmorphogenesis of individual cells, mov-ing upward in size toward tissues andorgans, and briefly touching on embryos.Chapters 2 and 3 are dedicated to exam-ples of cellular processes, including theformation of cell shape, the migrationof cells using chemotaxis and galvano-taxis, cell-to-cell communication, andthe condensation of cells to form newstructures. Chapter 4 covers several well-understood examples of epithelial mor-phogenesis, including the closure of holes,the making of tubes and folds, fusion,and branching. Chapter 5 discusses mor-phogenesis by cell proliferation anddeath. There is a wealth of informationpacked between the book’s covers. The

chapters present a broad array of the better-understood processes, tied togetherunder the themes of adaptive self-organization and emergence.

“Emergence” is a term used in physics,biology, economics, mathematics, phi-losophy, and robotics. Davies uses theterm with respect to embryonic behaviorto mean the way in which systems that in-volve only simple interactions can giverise to complex morphogenetic form.The introductory chapter illustrates thisprinciple using “The Game of Life,” acellular automaton devised by the Britishmathematician John Horton Conwayand available on the Web as a computersimulation.“The Game of Life” demon-strates that the behavior of a few cells ona grid can vary tremendously and non-intuitively even though their movementsare dictated by only four simple rules.The game illustrates the power of simple,local processes that result in highly com-plex behaviors, ultimately giving rise toa rich diversity of form. The simulationdemonstrates that understanding themechanism alone is insufficient for un-derstanding biological form.

Davies hopes that the concept ofemergence will unite the reductionistview of biochemistry and molecular biology with the holistic view of systemsbiology. Mechanics of Morphogenesis aimsto explain the morphogenesis of macro-molecular and cellular processes, ofepithelial tissue morphogenesis, and ofthe construction of the early embryo.Because biological form is ultimatelybased on interactions among molecules,Davies begins by discussing self-assembly:the coming together of subunits to make

a structure because their association isenergetically favored. An example of thisis actin monomers assembling to formmicrofilaments.

Moving upward in biological com-plexity, he then introduces the term“adaptive self-organization,” the processby which structures are assembled underthe guidance of feedback loops and thusmodified and optimized for a specificfunction. For example, the orientation,quantity, and location of the animal cellcytoskeleton are constructed when in-formation, in the form of mechanicaltension, is applied to the cell. Examples ofmorphogenesis using feedback loops areprovided at several “layers” of develop-ment (genes, proteins, cells, tissues, andso on). I was left with an appreciation ofthe morphogenesis of form not as a bottom-up, scalar process but as a processwhereby any “layer”of development maydictate change either up or down thechain of complexity.

Davies considers the idea of hierarchyin biological systems as heresy becausecommunication in development doesnot flow solely from one level (the genelevel) up. The presence of many layersthat communicate through feedbackloops can make them amenable to mod-ification by the environment and thusconfer selective advantage on morpho-genetic systems.

A unique contribution of this book isthat it concentrates solely on mecha-nisms of morphogenesis; it takes forgranted the processes of differentiationand of signaling and pattern formationcovered in other works. So, if the readeris looking for an update on body plan de-velopment or the development of struc-tures involving several cell types, such asa limb, this book may not be appropriate.Moreover, the book has little to offer thereader hoping to get a better feel for theevolution of form. It nicely covers manyconserved cellular and tissue processesand almost completely omits the mor-phogenetic processes that result in di-vergent organisms. The great advantageof this narrow but detailed approach isthat it immediately brings the reader upto date with recent reports and reviewsthat are central to the field.


Fall Focus on Books

A unique contribution of this book

is that it concentrates solely on

mechanisms of morphogenesis; it

takes for granted the processes of

differentiation and of signaling

and pattern formation covered

in other works.


In the closing chapter, Davies stressesthe importance of the multilayered or-ganization of morphogenetic processes,sends up warning flares on the metaphorof modularity, and addresses the inap-propriate use of the word “hierarchy” indevelopment. This struck me as an oddor at least incomplete selection of topics.My feeling is that if Davies wants to ex-plore developmental concepts then theyshould be discussed more completely. Iwould have liked to see a brief discussionof homology, homoplasy, phenotypicplasticity, canalization, co-option, andevolvability, because these topics aretouched on, albeit implicitly, in the earlier text. They relate directly to workin the field today and would have madea natural extension to the book. The lit-tle that Davies does offer in the closingchapter is quality scholarship, but Iwished I could have read more of histhoughts.

Mechanisms of Morphogenesis is writ-ten in accessible prose. Each chapter out-lines experiments that explore a basiccentral concept. The book is richly illus-trated with drawings and well supportedby an impressive, up-to-date literaturebase. Young scientists could profit im-mensely from this book, as it points topotential avenues of further fruitful re-search. For the established researcher, thebook will provide an excellent update oncurrent advances, and several simple exercises provided in footnotes will beuseful in the classroom. Davies wiselymakes no attempt to provide compre-hensive coverage, but uses persuasivelogic to draw out the robust argumentthat although form is ultimately depen-dent on cells constructing tissues, com-plexity in biological systems can and doesarise by simple mechanisms at the cellu-lar level. The result is a unique perspec-tive on a set of problems of fundamentalimportance to molecular, cell, and de-velopmental biologists.

CHRIS B. CAMERON Chris B. Cameron (e-mail:

[email protected]) is an assistant professor in the Department

of Biological Sciences at the University of Montreal, Quebec

H3C 3J7, Canada.

THINK ECOLOGICALLY, ACTETHICALLY

René Dubos, Friend of the GoodEarth: Microbiologist, Medical Scien-tist, Environmentalist. Carol L. Moberg.ASM Press, Washington, DC. 2005. 260pp. $29.95 (ISBN 1555813402 cloth).

Carol Moberg’s authoritative and compassionate biography of René

Dubos is an important and timely work.Dubos’s two dozen books and nearly athousand papers continue to shape ourthinking about antibiotics, bacterial cells,medicine, and sustainability. His accom-plishments and ideas are as profound asthose of Louis Pasteur, Aldo Leopold, orRachel Carson. Dubos demanded solu-tions to life’s problems that went beyondscience and technology to ecology, ethics,and the human search for meaning. Hiswork is especially relevant today as wenavigate through science wars and cultureclashes. Dubos offers a compassionate,moderate, deliberative message to a worldparalyzed by polarization.

Dubos was a successful experimentalscientist, an insightful theorist, and asought-after social critic and policy ad-visor. He succeeded brilliantly at benchscience, as evidenced by his discovery ofgramicidin, one of the first antibiotics. Healso excelled at communication, havingthe ability to convey complex ideas todiverse audiences spanning many disci-plines, as evidenced by his coining house-hold phrases such as “Think globally, actlocally”and winning the Pulitzer Prize forSo Human an Animal (New York: Scrib-ner, 1968). He brought an ecological ori-entation and an ethical obligation to hisstudies that produced new questions,new methods, new theories, and new di-rections for science and society.

Dubos’s ecological approach to soilbacteria revealed complexities and inter-actions that explain how life functions atthe basic, microbiological level. It alsoled him to issue early warnings aboutthe now common problem of antibioticresistance. His ecological approach tomedicine focused on promoting healthrather than curing disease. Infections and

diseases become acute, he argued, be-cause of environmental stresses, poordiet, emotional challenges, and othercontextual factors—not just the presenceof a bacterium or virus. Medicine now ac-cepts Dubos’s paradigm as dogma, butstill struggles toward realizing his visionof a more holistic approach to healthcare.

His ecological orientation also forcedDubos to rethink the prevailing phi-losophy of science. He advocated ahumanistic biology that went beyond re-ductionism and value-neutral facts tointerconnected systems and contextualtruths. He recognized that science andtechnology alone cannot solve societalproblems. Solutions require philosophy,aesthetics, and ethics, and they mustemerge from democracy and delibera-tion as well as technology. Perhaps most important, Dubos was a “despairing optimist” about environmental sustain-ability at a time when population bombs,mass extinction, and toxic wastes dom-inated a preventative, preservationist,misanthropic environmental movement.He believed humans were special andcould be creative partners with nature inthe odyssey of evolution.

Moberg is well qualified for the im-portant task of capturing the nuances ofDubos’s life. She assisted Dubos in the lastdecades of his career while he wrote hismajor works on the environment; shehas a PhD in comparative literature fromColumbia University; and she is on thefaculty of Rockefeller University, whereDubos spent much of his professionallife. She has access to his personal papers, rapport with his close peers, in-sight into his thinking, and sympathy forhis philosophy.

The story is told, in part, using Dubos’sown words and work. The reader istreated to a tour through the early 20th-century culture of science practiced atthe Rockefeller Institute, the methods ofmicrobiology and antibiotic research, theculture of medicine, the ecology of in-fection and disease, the biology of humannature, and the politics and philosophyof human ecology, environmentalism,and sustainability. Details abound, andthe reader’s appreciation for them maywax and wane depending on where the


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reader’s interests overlap Dubos’s broadreach. Insights also abound for readersengaged in one or more of the three maintopics: microbiology, medicine, or envi-ronmentalism. But the book’s appeal isbroader still. René Dubos should beknown by everyone who cherishes, cele-brates, and hopes to sustain human lifeon earth.

R. BRUCE HULL R. Bruce Hull (e-mail:

[email protected]) is the author of InfiniteNature (Chicago 2006) and a professor

in the College of Natural Resources atVirginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061.

SHORT-TERM FRESHWATERENVIRONMENTS

Vernal Pools: Natural History andConservation. Elizabeth A. Colburn.McDonald and Woodward, Blacksburg,VA, 2004. 426 pp., illus. $29.95 (ISBN0939923912 paper).

The goal of writing Vernal Pools: Nat-ural History and Conservation was, in

the words of author Elizabeth Colbum,to provide “an authoritative synthesis ofthe current understanding of the habi-tat characteristics of vernal pools, theplants and animals that live in them,and the factors that govern the interac-tions among pool organisms and theirenvironment.” Temporary pools areubiquitous in their distribution; sadly,however, most ecologists have ignoredtheir role in the diversity of aquatic andterrestrial systems. This book is a goodstart, albeit focused exclusively on vernalpools of the glaciated southeasternCanada and northeastern United States.It is organized into 14 chapters that de-fine vernal pools; describe them asaquatic habitats, with an emphasis onseasonal hydrologic patterns; addresstheir natural history, dominant organ-isms, and ecology; and describe the en-dangered status of northeastern NorthAmerican woodland vernal pools, threatsto their existence, and governmentalmechanisms to stem their disappear-

ance. The last chapter on conservation isespecially valuable in that it addresseskey limiting factors of forest vernal pools,chief mechanisms of their change anddecline, strengths and weaknesses of pro-tective legislation, and efforts to incor-porate vernal pools into the frameworkof natural resources management.

Vernal Pools is a text reminiscent ofearly natural history works. Reading it, Irecalled how Stephen Forbes’s 1887 paper “The Lake as a Microcosm” en-gendered my early interest in aquatic sys-tems, the organisms that lived there, andwhat those organisms did. Colburn’s vol-ume offers valuable source material for amodule on these unique water bodies, butnot the detail required for a completeaquatic ecology course. It is a naturalhistory book building on Ann HavenMorgan’s 1930 classic, Field Book of Pondsand Streams, not a limnology text.

A key strength of Vernal Pools is itscoverage of the diverse invertebrate andvertebrate fauna of these temporary water bodies, including discussions oflife history and food chains. Colburn dis-cusses adaptive strategies that are neces-sary for invertebrates to survive in theseephemeral environments. The detailed,referenced lists of faunal taxa will guidestudents as they assess these relativelyunknown aquatic systems. These chaptersnot only capture the author’s vast expe-rience with vernal pools but also her en-thusiasm for sharing their secrets withothers.

The line drawings of aquatic inverte-brates, largely from Morgan’s work, areexcellent. The black-and-white pho-tographs of key taxa are of less than idealquality, apparently because of light re-fraction and limited resolution. They de-tract from the book; more value wouldaccrue from additional line drawings.The color plates, however, provide effec-tive ecosystem overviews.

With her eastern focus, Colburn de-fines vernal pools as always associatedwith timberlands; but certainly roadsideditches and prairie ponds often fit hydro-logical criteria of vernal pools (here today, gone tomorrow) and are vital asrefugia or genetic corridors betweenwoodland-associated pools. Given thetitle, I expected that Vernal Pools would

at least briefly describe vernal pools thatexist in other North American regions(e.g., woodland pools in the southeasternPiedmont and the foothills of the Ap-palachians, vernal pools in prairie potholeecosystems of the upper US Midwest andCanadian prairie provinces, vernal poolsthat form during wet cycles in the aridSouthwest, vernal pools in lowland forestsamong the coastal mountains of the Pacific Northwest, and vernal pools inthe interior Rocky Mountain foothills).Neither should we ignore the springtimeroadside ditches across the continent thatfor three months explode with complexalgal and zooplankton communities, sup-porting myriad amphibians before send-ing them off to complete their life cycleson the uplands. At a minimum, expan-sion of the color plates to include repre-sentative examples of these systems wouldbe very helpful. Considering the book’sbroad targeted audience, I consider awider perspective essential.

Vernal Pools provides little in-depthcoverage of habitat mechanisms, physical–chemical cycles, and controlling mecha-nisms of aquatic populations. Even inan introductory text, it’s difficult to address aquatic populations and com-munities without some quantitative,physical- and chemical-specific coverageof their controlling factors. The book offers weak coverage of habitat descrip-tions—the physical–chemical environ-ment interacting with pool biota. Itprovides no trend analyses of key habi-tat descriptors (temperature, dissolvedoxygen, plant nutrients, and total organiccarbon, a key measure of heterotrophicactivity in woodland vernal pools). Thereis very little quantification of organismdensity, frequency of occurrence, sea-sonal patterns of populations, or met-rics of ecological integrity, all measuresthat contribute to a system overview.

The brief chapter “Energy Flow, Sea-sonal Cycles, and Variations in Commu-nity Composition” limits its coverage ofenergy flow to an effective but generic illustration of woodland vernal poolcomponents. The role of detrital-basedfood webs is recognized, but nowhere inthe chapter is there any measure of energyflow and production rates between sys-tem components.


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A significant contribution is the 63-page appendix, “An Annotated List ofthe Fauna of Vernal Pools and SeasonalPonds in and near the Glaciated North-east.” With its taxonomic organizationand its comments on the physical andhydrologic setting of listed taxa, it shouldserve as a starting point for other work-ers to add to this ecological database.

C. MICHAEL FALTERC. Michael Falter (e-mail:

[email protected]) is a professoremeritus of aquatic ecology and

limnology at the College of NaturalResources, University of Idaho,

Moscow, ID 83843.

NEW TITLES

All Creatures: Naturalists, Collectors,and Biodiversity, 1850–1950. RobertE. Kohler. Princeton University Press,Princeton, NJ, 2006. 380 pp., illus.$35.00 (ISBN 0691125392 cloth).

Amniote Paleobiology: Perspectives onthe Evolution of Mammals, Birds,and Reptiles. Matthew T. Carrano,Timothy J. Gaudin, Richard W. Blob,and John R. Wible, eds. University ofChicago Press, Chicago, 2006. 554 pp.,illus. $40.00 (ISBN 0226094782 paper).

The Best American Science Writing2006. Atul Gawande, ed. HarperPerennial, New York, 2006. 384 pp.$13.95 (ISBN 006072644X paper).

Biotech: The Countercultural Origins ofan Industry. Eric J. Vettel. Universityof Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia,2006. 296 pp., illus. $39.95 (ISBN0812239474 cloth).

Birds and Climate Change. Anders P.Møller, Wolfgang Fiedler, and PeterBerthold, eds. Elsevier, Burlington,MA, 2006. 272 pp., illus. $49.95 (ISBN0123736145 paper).

Building the Next Ark: How NGOsWork to Protect Biodiversity. Michael

M. Gunter Jr. University Press of NewEngland, Lebanon, NH, 2006. 272 pp.,illus. $19.95 (ISBN 1584655909 paper).

Cognitive Development in Chimpan-zees. Tetsuro Matsuzawa, MasakiTomonaga, and Masayuki Tanaka, eds.Springer, New York, 2006. 548 pp.,illus. $89.95 (ISBN 4431302468 cloth).

Corridor Ecology: The Science and Prac-tice of Linking Landscapes for Bio-diversity Conservation. Jodi A. Hilty,William Z. Lidicker Jr., and Adina M.Merenlender. Island Press, Washing-ton, DC, 2006. 344 pp., illus. $30.00(ISBN 1559630965 paper).

Ecology of Desert Rivers. Richard Kings-ford, ed. Cambridge University Press,New York, 2006. 368 pp., illus. $110.00(ISBN 0521818257 cloth).

The First Boat People. Steve Webb. Cam-bridge University Press, New York,2006. 336 pp., illus. $120.00 (ISBN0521856566 cloth).

Footprints in the Soil: People and Ideasin Soil History. Benno P. Warkentin,ed. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2006. 566pp., illus. $75.00 (ISBN 0444521771cloth).

Global Coastal Change. Ivan Valiela.Blackwell, Malden, MA, 2006. 376 pp.,illus. $89.95 (ISBN 1405136855 paper).

How to Do Ecology: A Concise Hand-book. Richard Karban and MikaelaHuntzinger. Princeton UniversityPress, Princeton, NJ, 2006. 160 pp.,illus. $16.95 (ISBN 0691125775 paper).

Jane Goodall: The Woman Who Rede-fined Man. Dale Peterson. HoughtonMifflin, Boston, 2006. 752 pp., illus.$35.00 (ISBN 0395854059 paper).

Keywords and Concepts in EvolutionaryDevelopmental Biology. Brian K. Halland Wendy M. Olson, eds. HarvardUniversity Press, Cambridge, MA,

2006. 476 pp., illus. $29.95 (ISBN0674022408 paper).

The Landscape of Reform: Civic Prag-matism and Environmental Thoughtin America. Ben A. Minteer. MITPress, Cambridge, MA, 2006. 272 pp.$28.00 (ISBN 0262134616 cloth).

Mechanistic Home Range Analysis. PaulR. Moorcroft and Mark A. Lewis.Princeton University Press, Prince-ton, NJ, 2006. 208 pp., illus. $39.50(ISBN 0691009287 paper).

The Other Insect Societies. James T.Costa. Harvard University Press,Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA, 2006.812 pp., illus.$59.95 (ISBN 0674021630cloth).

Sippewissett: Or, Life on a Salt Marsh.Tim Traver. Chelsea Green, WhiteRiver Junction, VT, 2006. 264 pp.,illus. $22.50 (ISBN 1933392142 cloth).

The Survival Imperative: Using Space toProtect Earth. William E. Burrows.Forge Books, New York, 2006. 320 pp.,illus. $24.95 (ISBN 0765311143 cloth).

The Theoretical Biologist’s Toolbox:Quantitative Methods for Ecologyand Evolutionary Biology. MarcMangel. Cambridge University Press,New York, 2006. 392 pp., illus. $50.00(ISBN 0521537487 paper).

To Recruit and Advance: Women Stu-dents and Faculty in Science and Engineering. National Academy ofSciences. National Academies Press,Washington, DC, 2006. 148 pp.,illus. $29.95 (ISBN 0309095212 paper).

Wildfire: A Century of Failed ForestPolicy. George Wuerthner, ed. IslandPress, Washington, DC, 2006. 352 pp.,illus. $45.00 (ISBN 1597260703 paper).

The World of the Polar Bear. NorbertRosing. Firefly Books, Buffalo, NY,2006. 204 pp., illus. $45.00 (ISBN1554071550 cloth).


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