Life History Evolution

There is a great deal of variation in the life histories of creatures in the natural world, even among different populations of the same species. In this text for graduate students and researchers, Roff (U. of California, Riverside) argues that these variations are primarily the result of natural selection and represent adaptation. He uses the principles of evolutionary biology as a framework for explaining differences in, for example, age of maturity, adult size, mortality, and age-specific fecundity. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Derek Roff is Professor of Biology at the University of California, Riverside. He earned a B.Sc. at Sydney University, and his Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia, with Dr. C. S. Holling. Prior to Life History Evolution, he authored The Evolution of Life Histories: Theory and Analysis and Evolutionary Quantitative Genetics (both from Chapman and Hall). Dr. Roff is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His research explores the evolution of life history variation with particular reference to the interaction between quantitative genetic variation and environmental heterogeneity.