Search

A Synopsis of Biology summarizes the entire field of biology using a telegraphic style. The discussions are organized around seven themes: form and structure (morphology); functions (physiology); organism and environment (ecology); evolution and heredity (genetics); plant classification (systematic botany); animal classification (systematic zoology); and applications of biology (applied biology). Comprised of seven sections, this book begins with a detailed account of the morphology of living and non-living things, followed by an assessment of the origin of life. The reader is then introduced to reproduction (vegetative, sexual, and asexual); plant and animal tissues; seeds and seedlings; and metameric segmentation. Subsequent chapters explore matter and energy; organic and inorganic compounds; dermal excretion and thermo-regulation; periodicity and seasonal phenomena; and the life of rivers and lakes. The book also examines parasitism; mating and courtship; natural, artificial, and sexual selection; cultivation of plants; and domestication of animals. This monograph will be useful to research workers, degree students, and others interested in biology.

Survey of Biological Progress, Volume III explores the principles common to all biological areas that undergo major developments and modifications, including the embryo, botany, chromosome, insect behavior, hormones, and respiration. This volume is composed of six chapters, and begins with a presentation of the embryological concepts and the cellular components of the embryo. The next chapter deals with the trends in systematic botany of the vascular plants. Some of these trends apply equally well to nonvascular plants, as demonstrated by an upsurge of cytotaxonomic studies in the bryophytes, and the use of new techniques of importance to the systematist in such groups as the bacteria. These topics are followed by discussion on the cytologically detectable difference between the chromosome sets of related species, whether involving a difference in chromosome number or merely a change in the relative sequence of parts within a chromosome, as a cytotaxonomic difference. The remaining chapters describe the host-parasite interactions, the behavior of chemical trail-following and orientation to airborne odors of insects, the mechanism of action of hormones on cells, and the regulation of respiration rate. This book will be of value to undergraduate biology students.

Survey of Biological Progress, Volume II is an eight-chapter text that covers the advances in some biological subjects, including human genetics, plant morphogenesis, histochemistry, and plant reproduction. The opening chapter examines the kinetics of the effect of radiation on living systems. The succeeding chapters explore the developments in the field of human genetics and oceanography. These topics are followed by discussions on the regularity and the specific patterns exhibited in plant morphogenesis; the practical application of plant hormones in horticulture and agriculture; and the technical problems in histochemical studies. A chapter evaluates theoretical and experimental evidence on the fine structure of protoplasm. The final chapter looks into the environmental factors and physiological changes that can be associated with the production of sex structures of all kinds of plants. This book is of great value to biologists, geneticists, researchers, and biology teachers and students.

Progress in Theoretical Biology, Volume 3 lays particular emphasis on ecology, the theory of learning systems, and the theory of the genetic code. The book discusses the ecosystem patterns in randomly fluctuating environments; the classical and instrumental learning by neural networks; and the genetic language. The text also describes psychophysical discrimination as well as the linear systems analysis of the calcium cycle in a forested watershed ecosystem. Biologists, ecologists, geneticists, zoologists, and cytologists will find the book invaluable.