Integrative and Comparative Biology Advance Access published online on October 17, 2007
Integrative and Comparative Biology, doi:10.1093/icb/icm098
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Review |
The Biology of the Threespine Stickleback. Sara Östlund-Nilsson, I. Mayer, and F.A. Huntingford, editors.
Professor and Chair of Biology
Clark University
Worcester MA 01610, USA
Correspondence: E-mail: SFoster{at}clarku.edu
The Biology of the Threespine Stickleback.Sara Östlund-Nilsson, I Mayer, and F.A. Huntingford, editors.Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2007. 392 pp. ISBN 13: 978-0-8493-3219-7. $139.95.
The adaptive radiation of the threespine stickleback fish, Gasterosteus aculeatus, has provided remarkable insights into the causes of ecotypic differentiation and speciation. Populations of this diminutive fish comprise oceanic, ancestral lineages that have repeatedly colonized freshwater habitats in coastal, holarctic regions, with the last major wave of colonization initiated at the end of the last glacial maximum. This radiation has offered unique insights into the causes of adaptive radiation because the oceanic ancestor is thought to have changed little since the last glacial recession and thus provides an "ancestral" type for comparison with recent freshwater derivatives. Extensive research on the stickleback has provided a rich and very large literature on this complex of populations that is now assuming even greater value due to the development of genomic techniques, and the acquisition of extensive data on genetic sequences. This edited volume provides a set of papers intended to update earlier volumes that reviewed the literature existing at the time (Wootton 1976
; Bell and Foster 1994). The 11 chapters are variably successful and somewhat eclectic in coverage.
The volume begins with an overview of the phylogeny, systematics, and taxonomy of the sticklebacks (M.Y. Mattern). This chapter includes an historical overview of synonomy, a major issue in stickleback taxonomy because of the extensive population differentiation within species, and evaluates the implications of this phenomenon for taxonomy and systematics. Although the volume is intended, according to its title, to focus on G. aculeatus, one can readily understand that a chapter on the systematics of the Gasterosteidae facilitates understanding of the origin of threespine stickleback characteristics. The value of the closing chapter in the volume (S. Östlund-Nilsson and I. Mayer), which provides brief overviews of the other gasterosteids, is less clear because the summaries are so brief and not clearly linked to the rest of the volume.
The second chapter by D. Kingsley and C. Peichel describes the development of new molecular tools since 1994, and illustrates their value in understanding genetic underpinnings of evolutionary change in the stickleback radiation. This chapter clearly reflects a substantial advance in the field and is a pleasure to read. Other chapters also present topics not well covered in earlier volumes or that have progressed considerably since the volume by Bell and Foster was published in 1994. These include I. Barber's authoritative chapter on host–parasite interactions, a chapter by I. Katsiadaki on the stickleback as a model system for ecotoxicology studies, and a pair of chapters on reproductive endocrinology. This latter pair of chapters (Chapter 7 by B. Borg, and Chapter 8 by I Mayer and M. Páll) could well have been combined to reduce redundancy and to provide a clearer overview of the control of reproduction, but are valuable in that they provide authoritative reviews of the topic.
A personal favorite among the chapters is that by D. McLennan, in which she discusses the sensory world of threespine sticklebacks. Although this topic was covered in W. Rowland's thorough summary of literature on reproductive behavior and color in threespines in the 1994 volume, significant advances have occurred since that time and McLennan interprets them in the context of earlier literature in a well-written chapter. Her beautiful description of color changes in males of many populations during reproduction is alone worth the read. The chapter on speciation in the threespine stickleback radiation (J. W. Boughman) summarizes in careful detail insights garnered by J. D. McPhail and subsequent researchers, whereas the chapter on reproductive behavior (S. Östlund-Nilsson) is less successful because of an incomplete coverage of many topics. This chapter, like the chapter on antipredator defenses (F. Huntingford and S. Coyle) justifies partial coverage of the stated topics as a description only of advances in the field since 1994; however, the result is somewhat misleading if the chapters are not paired with earlier volumes, an effect that may be frustrating for some readers.
This volume clearly provides a new resource for those interested in exploring the value of threespine sticklebacks for research in a diversity of areas. Although most of the chapters begin with the recognition that freshwater populations comprise an adaptive radiation, most (excluding those by Mattern, Barber and Kingsley, and Peichel) are weakened by forgetting this diversity, and instead interpreting information from single or a few populations as if characteristic of the entire G. aculeatus complex. This is a serious flaw and should be kept in mind by readers looking for guidance on the value of the radiation for evolutionary study. Nevertheless, I am sure I will reach for this volume frequently as a source of information—especially in those areas not previously covered by earlier reviews, or in which there have been substantial advances in the field.
 |
References |
|---|
TOP
 References |
|---|
Bell MA, Foster SA., eds. The evolutionary biology of the threespine stickleback (1994) London: Oxford University Press.
Wootton RJ. The biology of the sticklebacks (1976) London: Academic Press.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||