Integrative and Comparative Biology Advance Access originally published online on August 13, 2007
Integrative and Comparative Biology 2007 47(5):793-794; doi:10.1093/icb/icm060
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Book Review |
Reproductive Biology and Phylogeny of Birds: Phylogeny, Morphology, Hormones, Fertilization (Volume 6A of Series). Barrie G. M. Jamieson, editor.
Reproductive Biology and Phylogeny of Birds: Sexual Selection, Behavior, Conservation, Embryology and Genetics (Volume 6B of Series). Barrie G. M. Jamieson, editor.
Professor of Evolutionary Biology, Columbia University
Reproductive Biology and Phylogeny of Birds: Phylogeny, Morphology, Hormones, Fertilization (Volume 6A of Series). Barrie G. M. Jamieson, editor.
Enfield, NH: Science Publishers. 2007. 609 pp. ISBN 1578083869.
Reproductive Biology and Phylogeny of Birds: Sexual Selection, Behavior, Conservation, Embryology and Genetics (Volume 6B of Series). Barrie G. M. Jamieson, editor.
Enfield, NH: Science Publishers. 2007. 532 pp. ISBN 157808444X.
These multiauthored volumes are the sixth in a series on reproductive biology and phylogeny for which Barrie Jamieson is also the series editor. The 23 chapters cover avian reproductive biology thoroughly with extensive literature citations and a detailed index in each volume. English names are accompanied by scientific names, although no authority for species-level classification and nomenclature is given.
The diversity of topics covered is impressive, but the editor does not provide an indication in the preface of the limits of his concepts of avian reproductive biology, and hence why some topics were omitted. Although parental care and cooperative breeding is included, there is no discussion of the posthatching altricial to precocial spectrum in birds (Starck and Ricklefs 1998
). The important topics of the structure and formation in the oviduct of the complete avian egg (as opposed to the ovum) and the relationships of the developing embryo to the entire egg and to the external environment are not covered. Treatment of fetal hemoglobin and limiting factors for high-elevation breeding in birds would have been welcome.
These matters set aside, the editor has collected an impressive series of outstanding international authors who have presented excellent coverage of their individual topics with clear illustrations and thorough bibliographies. I found much new information in all chapters, as will all zoologists, including avian biologists. These two books do not duplicate the material in Farner's and King's nine-volume Avian Biology or King's and McLelland's four-volume Form and Function in Birds, rather they cover a number of different topics and include much new material.
More attention is given to the male reproductive system than to the female one, reflecting the research interests of the editor but this can be excused as most treatments of avian reproduction overemphasize the female system because of the importance of egg production for human consumption. The accounts of male copulatory structures and of the great diversity of spermatozoa are fascinating. The elongate intromittent phallus of ducks (which can be longer than the body of the bird) appears to be an adaptation for copulation on the water with the male mounted on the almost completely submerged female. Other groups of aquatic birds lack an intromittent organ, suggesting that they do not copulate on the water. A true phallus is present only in the palaeognathae and the Galloanserae, but has lost its intromittent function in most of the Galliformes.
Ultraviolet color signals, reflecting the different system of color vision of birds, compared to that of mammals, are shown to play a significant role in courtship; fluorescent signals, which birds can also see, are mentioned with the statement that this aspect of avian color vision still requires much additional study before its role in courtship and species recognition can be understood. The contribution of odors (including those from the environment) in chemical signaling in birds is covered in detail and much information is presented that otherwise is little known to most biologists, including ornithologists.
Perhaps the least convincing aspect of the book, and one that is an important part of the title is the "phylogeny of birds." This topic is covered in the first chapter and based almost entirely on comparisons of genetic analyses in birds. Many of these results are still controversial, falling under the heading of experimental classifications and not a standard system. Moreover, only three of the other 22 chapters in these volumes make use of the material in Chapter 1. Perhaps the editor believed that comparisons in biology can be done only on the basis of a classification, which is not the case; nothing is said, however, about this important point in the preface.
Missing from these volumes is a final chapter bringing the excellent material presented into a summary relating to the overall biology and evolution of birds. A central question is why are all birds oviparous? Certainly not because they fly because bats are viviparous. Furthermore, the great diversity of breeding types (including sexual reversal except for producing eggs and sperm), lengths of the incubation and nesting periods, and the altricial–precocial spectrum in relation to the variation of environments in which birds live, represent a series of associated questions. Answers, even speculative ones, to such questions would not be expected, but posing these questions would foster much interest in comparative work in avian reproductive biology and pave the way for future research.
Reproductive Biology and Phylogeny of Birds provides an outstanding coverage of current knowledge of this aspect of avian biology and this book belong in all academic libraries.
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Starck JM, Ricklefs RE. Avian growth and development. In: Evolution within the altricial-precocial (1998) Spectrum. New York: Oxford Ornithological Series, Oxford University Press. 441.
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