The Ghosts Of Evolution Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, And Other Ecological Anachronisms [Paperback]

Connie Barlow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 21, 2002

A new vision is sweeping through ecological science: The dense web of dependencies that makes up an ecosystem has gained an added dimension-the dimension of time. Every field, forest, and park is full of living organisms adapted for relationships with creatures that are now extinct. In a vivid narrative, Connie Barlow shows how the idea of "missing partners" in nature evolved from isolated, curious examples into an idea that is transforming how ecologists understand the entire flora and fauna of the Americas. This fascinating book will enrich the experience of any amateur naturalist, as well as teach us that the ripples of biodiversity loss around us are just the leading edge of what may well become perilous cascades of extinction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In 1982, respected ecologists Dan Janzen and Paul Martin published a short, provocative paper in the journal Science, asserting that many fruits found in Central American forests "are adapted primarily for animals that have been extinct for thirteen thousand years." As those species went the way of the dodo, the fruits lost their initial means of dispersal, but continued to eke out a system of procreation, Janzen and Martin explained. Their insight led to the methodological realization that to fully understand the evolutionary forces shaping these fruits, scientists must first determine the behavior of the extinct animals. Science writer Barlow (From Gaia to Selfish Genes) extends this compelling idea into a narrative stretching from the Pleistocene era up through the inception, rejection and gradual, partial acceptance of this theory by the ecological science community. The large, pendulous seedpods of a honey locust, Barlow shows, evoke the ghosts of mammoths that used to disperse the seeds. Although there are some beautiful passages, too often the writing is precious and repetitive. Barlow details her own rather simplistic observations of certain plants e.g., persimmon, osage orange and ginkgo whose anachronistic existence is similar to the Central American fruits, but she does not contribute significantly to the underlying theory. Janzen and Martin explained their ideas in nine pages. Barlow, with 20 years of hindsight and 25 times as many pages, embellishes the story convincingly but doesn't add much new information. Photos not seen by PW.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Here's an interesting proposal: we can tell a lot about the kinds of animals that existed thousands of years ago by looking closely at the kinds of fruit that grow today. A quarter century ago, this idea was so radical that its originators, ecologist Dan Janzen and paleontologist Paul Martin, had trouble even getting someone to publish their paper on the subject. This fascinating book chronicles the development of Janzen and Martin's theory and extends it by looking at new discoveries that help the experts learn how the world's ecosystems have evolved. Everywhere we look, Barlow says, we can find the ghosts of animals that evolved to eat certain fruits; the animals died off, but the fruits still grow, the only remaining part of a once-thriving ecosystem. Like the works of Stephen Jay Gould and Lewis Thomas, this account is imminently accessible for lay readers but also contains enough detail to satisfy those with some knowledge of the subject. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (March 21, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465005527
• ISBN-13: 978-0465005529
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #273,889 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #59 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Endangered Species

More About the Author

Connie Barlow (b. 1952) had 4 science books published between 1991 and 2001. All explore how a mainstream understanding of evolutionary biology can help us feel deeply rooted in this world and supported by a glorious ancestry. In 2001, she shifted her focus to online writings and curricula, as webmaster of the acclaimed TheGreatStory dot org website. In 2009 she (with her husband, Michael Dowd) launched a podcast: "America's Evolutionary Evangelists." She regularly uploads evolutionary videos to her YouTube channel, ghostsofevolution, which echoes the title of her last book, "The Ghosts of Evolution." You can sample Connie's free writings (including contributed chapters to books) at her publications page on her website (google: Connie Barlow publications). Connie is also the founder and webmaster of an ecological activist group: TorreyaGuardians dot org.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Mystery of the Overbuilt Species April 26, 2001

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

As is often the case in my morning carpool to Kansas City, passions ran high when I raised the topic of megafaunal dispersal. George was at the wheel, I was riding shotgun, and Bob and Stan were scrunched up in the back of George's old Honda Accord. I was, to the best of my ability, explaining the arguments in Connie Barlow's new book about extinct seed dispersal partners: The Ghosts of Evolution. Connie asserts (along with veteran paleobiolists Paul Martin and Dan Janzen), that certain largish animals had big enough gullets to swallow fruits like Osage oranges whole and then poop out the seeds several miles away, thus expanding the plant's territory in the next generation. Unfortunately, nobody provides this service for Osage oranges anymore, which is why they all lie around rotting within a few yards of the mother tree every autumn.

In an attempt to confirm that a creature like a mastodon would willingly eat Osage oranges, Martin and Barlow persuaded the director of the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago to offer the fruit (scientific name maclura pomifera) to three of the zoo's elephants. "Affie, the matriarch of the Brookfield elephants, did eat maclura--but just the first fruit she was offered. After that, she showed no interest in any more. The reactions of the other elephants were strongly negative. One wasn't even willing to smell the fruit when the offer was first made. Finally, she took it from her keeper and hurled it down the hall. The second elephant did the same thing but aimed for the public area." I can't say that I blame them. As a child, I was under the impression that Osage oranges (or hedge apples) were poisonous.

Zoo elephants' finickiness notwithstanding, the book argues that some species are obviously "overbuilt" for the ecological niche they inhabit today. Why would natural selection lead to such an outcome? For example, pronghorns can run not just a little faster but way the hell faster than any of their nearest predators (wolves and coyotes). This speed is apparently a relic of days when something faster than wolves or coyotes were chasing pronghorns, possibly a New World cheetah that became extinct thirteen thousand years ago. Well, you may ask, why haven't the pronghorns slowed down and devoted their evolutionary energy to something more productive, like jumping barbwire fences? More generally, what is a believable schedule on which a species reacts to changes in its environment?

As Connie Barlow analyzes the results of experiments with the exotic fruits and seeds in her New York apartment kitchen, she writes with delight and authority. She teaches us technical and colorful terms such as seed predator and pulp thief. The former destroys seeds by eating them rather than by defecating them intact. The latter eats the flesh around the seed and discards the seed without transporting it to a promising new sprouting site. We humans are guilty of both depredations, although with our compost heaps we have introduced a modest new dispersal path for domesticated fruits. Barlow's story is certainly not bereft of poetic lyric, as in the "paucity of pawpaw pollinators"--or of Conan Doyle-ian suspense: "Perhaps the most compelling evidence that Mrs. Foxie defecated persimmon seeds intact can be found in my collection of fox feces."

In her final chapter, Barlow preaches the gospel of "the great work:" the purposeful and painstaking reversal of the appalling history of extinction for which our species has, knowingly and unknowingly, been responsible. If the dedication to and passion for nature that is evident in this book can infect an emerging generation of professional and amateur naturalists, we may within our lifetimes see the beginning of this work.

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The most important ecology book of 2001, but... April 27, 2001

By John Kwok HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This splendid addition to the popular scientific literature is almost as insightful and as well written as David Quammen's "Song of the Dodo". A fine overview of Dr. Paul Martin's and Dr. Daniel Janzen's pioneering work on "ecological anachronisms" in New World plants, it should be read by ecologists and evolutionary biologists, as well as the scientfically interested public. Connie Barlow has made an important contribution to Martin's and Janzen's ideas by distinguishing relative degrees of ecological anachronisms. Yet her book does contain some serious omissions and factual errors which I shall note later. Let me first sing its praises.

Connie Barlow's overview of "ecological anachronisms" is absolutely superb. She has a tremendous eye for detail, but never gets completely bogged down by it. Instead, much of what she writes is replete with insightful humor. She opens with an excellent history of Martin's and Janzen's work. Her vivid writing is a wonderful synthesis of science, natural history and biography all thrown in for good measure. I suspect historians of science interested in ecology and evolutionary biology will turn to this book as a primary reference on "ecological anachronisms".

Readers will find compelling Connie Barlow's descriptions of Paul Martin and Daniel Janzen. She treats them as a dynamic pair passionate about their unique insights into ecology and other aspects of evolutionary biology. They will also find compelling her attempts at scientific research. I suspect they will chuckle as much I did while reading about her experiments on "ecological anachronisms" in the wilds of New Mexico and the urban jungle that is New York City.

Having sung some praises, let me point out some flaws. Robert MacArthur, the greatest ecologist of the late 20th Century, is tossing in his grave, hearing from Connie Barlow that evolutionary ecology is a new science. At the time of his death in 1972, he recognized the importance of history - or rather, "deep time" - in understanding ecological patterns. Indeed, he covers evolutionary ecology in the final chapter of his text "Geographical Ecology", an elegant synthesis and literary epitaph to his career. One of MacArthur's former graduate students, Dr. Michael Rosenzweig, a colleague of Paul Martin's at the University of Arizona, has looked upon paleontology as the source of interesting questions relevant to ecology which many ecologists don't have training, interest, or time to pursue. His interest has spanned decades, culminating in his "incumbent replacement" hypothesis on the role of adaptation in promoting "evolutionary success" in clades (groups of related species that share a common ancestor) that was published in 1991 in the scientific journal Paleobiology.

"Devolution" is a scientifically inaccurate term which Connie Barlow mentions several times, most notably on pages 220-221. What she describes as devolution sounds a lot like neoteny to me. In neoteny, juvenile features are retained by adults through natural selection. It's possible that natural selection will act to promote the production of smaller fruit in succeeding generations, as the result of neoteny, not "devolution." Stephen Jay Gould's "Ontogeny and Phylogeny" provides an excellent description of neoteny and other evolutionary trends related to changes in size and shape. Indeed, I wish she had shown him her manuscript prior to its publication. His insightful comments on "devolution" and adaptation - or rather aptations - would have made this a better, more scientifically accurate, book. Indeed, one minor failing of this book is that she glosses over the significance of adaptations/aptations/exaptations as a key towards understanding ecological anachronisms which a scientifically literate public might miss easily.

Despite my strong reservations, I still enthusiastically endorse this book. Its excellent coverage of "ecological anachronisms" should be long remembered.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Who mourns for the mastodons? June 23, 2002

By Dennis Littrell HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

"The tusks that clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls..."
--from a poem by Arthur Guiterman

The exciting idea in this book is that there are trees that "lament" the passing of the mastodons and the other extinct megafauna that once distributed their seeds. What animal now regularly eats the avocado whole, swallows the seed and excretes it far from the tree in a steamy, nourishing pile of dung? No such animal exists in the Western Hemisphere to which the avocado is native. (Barlow reports that elephants in Africa, where the avocado has been introduced, eat the avocado and do indeed excrete its pit whole.)

How about the mango with its pulp that adheres so tightly to the rather large pit? As Barlow surmises, such fruits were "designed" for mutualists that would take the fruit whole and let the pit pass through their digestive systems to emerge intact for germination away from the mother tree. Note that the avocado pit is not only too large to pass comfortably through the digestive system of any current native animal of the Americas, but is also highly toxic so that such an animal would have quickly learned not to chew it. Note too that the mango pit is extremely hard, thus encouraging a large animal to swallow it along with the closely adhering pulp rather than try to chew it or spit it out. Consider also the papaya. The fruit are large and soft so that a large animal could easily take one into its mouth and just mash it lightly and swallow. Note too that the fruits of the papaya tree grow not high in the tree, nor is the tree a low lying bush. Instead the tree is taller than a bush but its fruits are clustered at a height supermarket convenient for a large animal to pluck.

Barlow considers a number of other trees, the honey locust and the osage orange, for example, as examples of ecological anachronisms, trees that have out-lived their mutualists and consequently must form new partnerships with other seed distributors or face extinction. For those trees that have pleased humans, the avocado, the mango, the papaya, etc., there is no immediate danger, but some other trees are at the edge of extinction. Their fruits fall to the ground and stay there until they rot. New trees grow only down hill when an occasional flood of water moves their fruit to a new location.

Barlow also sees ghosts from the Mesozoic era. She writes, "Ghosts of dinosaurs are easy to conjure in October and November wherever city landscapers planted ginkgo trees...even when I forget to look for the ghosts of dinosaurs my nose alerts me to their presence. Only a carrion eater could find the odor of fallen ginkgo fruit appealing. Before beginning this book, I wrongly blamed the alcoholic homeless for the vomitlike stench in Washington Square Park." (p. 12)

In short this book is about those trees--anachronisms--have been without their mutualists since the mass extinction of the megafauna of the Western Hemisphere that took place about 13,000 years ago. It is a popular expansion on some original work done by ethnologist Daniel H. Janzen and paleontologist Paul S. Martin, their seminal paper appearing in the journal Science in 1982. Connie Barlow's prose is not only very readable, but is full of the excitement of scientific discovery, vivid and concrete, and packed with an amazing amount of information so that not only the trees described, but the giant sloths, mastodons and mammoths--the ghosts of harvests past--come alive on the pages.

What Barlow does more than anything is open our eyes to the ecological nature of fruit and the relationships that exist between trees and the animals that eat the fruit. We learn how color, taste, aroma, texture, nutritional value, toughness of rind, size, shape, number of seeds and how they are encased, etc.--how all these qualities of fruit have evolved to entice the animals that will faithfully distribute the seeds, but also how some qualities discourage other animals, "pulp thieves" or "seed predators," that benefit from the food provided by the tree, but do not help in its propagation.

The story of the desert gourd was of particular interest to me because during many walks in the chaparral and deserts of California I have come across this vine with its hard, dry and unattractive gourds that were never picked or eaten. Barlow theorizes that the plant is also an anachronism, and that there did exist in the past animals that found the gourds, if not delicious, at least palatable.

Another curious anachronism reported on is the devil's claw of the Chihuahuan desert of Mexico. This plant produces a most amazing apparatus that wraps itself around an animal's foot and claw-like clings to the animal, dribbling its seeds to the ground as the animal moves. There is a photo of the claw on page 151 wrapped around a human ankle. Incidentally, the text is enhanced by a number of interesting black and white photos of the trees and their fruits.

This is one of the most interesting and original books on evolution that I have read in recent years, and one of the most informative.