The Ghosts of Evolution: Nonsensical Fruit, Missing Partners, and Other Ecological Anachronisms [Paperback]

Connie Barlow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 19, 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 19, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465005527
• ISBN-13: 978-0465005529
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #126,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

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

By A Customer

This review is from: The Ghosts of Evolution (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.

26 of 28 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 (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ghosts of Evolution (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.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing and juicy ghost story full of fruit and animals, April 22, 2001

By 

Dorie Green (Thiensville, WI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Ghosts of Evolution (Hardcover)

E. O. Wilson writes, "Our species and its way of thinking are a product of evolution, not the purpose of evolution." Connie Barlow's "The Ghosts of Evolution" is an eloquent gift to all of us who yearn to discover more about the great adventure that is the evolutionary saga. The mystery at the center her book connects the reader in a profound way to the unfurling of evolution, to extinction, and to those who "remember" in their limbs and organs ancient relationships with beings long departed. Be ready for a whirlwind ride that will transform the most familiar and mundane details of our present world and plunge you into a Pleistocene universe where rhinos and camels roam ancient American deserts, giant 20-foot ground sloths lumber with gaping mouths toward tropical fruits, and mammoths and mastodonts rumble among themselves while browsing in the avocado trees and crunching honey locust pods against their enormous teeth. With some help from the author, we are quickly seeing evidence of this continent as it was before history, before humans, when the trees evolved to disperse their young through the bowels of their partners, the giant mammals, reptiles, dinosaurs, and birds. This was a world of creatures with gapes large enough to take in an entire fruit, swallow the pit intact, and plant it amid a steamy pile of fertilizer. While we no longer live among those giants, we are sojourners among their partners, the "anachronistic" plants, trees, and fruits that recall a world that, from our human perspective, ceased to exist between ten and twenty thousand years ago. As Barlow tells the story, "An avocado sitting in a bin at the grocery store is thus biology in a time warp. It is suited for a world that no longer exists. The fruit of the avocado is an ecological anachronism. Its missing partners are the ghosts of evolution." The "ghosts" from our past haunt the pages of Barlow's book and eventually drift into our modern world. Her book has crept into my head and now follows me down the grocery aisles, resurrecting enormous megafaunal ghosts who stalk the avocadoes and papaya bins. Who was Honey Locust seducing when she wrapped her seeds in foot and a half long pods dangling from the tops of her lacy limbs? No one who is here today, that's for sure! And so Honey Locust waits for a ghost, probably the elephant doomed by our ancestors at the end of the last Ice Age.

"The Ghosts of Evolution" is a science book that explores the new field of evolutionary study surrounding surviving anachronisms and extinct creatures. For a nonscientist such as myself, there is an enormous amount of information about the ways in which plants and animals interact to produce new generations. The book is also full of stories about the scientists themselves and the studies that have produced this knowledge. The stories are told with undaunted enthusiasm, a persistently inquisitive spirit, and a wonderfully eccentric sense of humor. As e-mails and counter-arguments shoot back and forth among the experts, Barlow sifts and winnows the results and produces them for us in a masterful style full of wit and humor and "in your face" common sense. I laughed through much of the book. Some of my favorite moments are when the author conducts her own experiments, using any and all available means to test her own theories and questions, her kitchen sink, her neighbor's horses (Pleistocene returnees to their home continent!), her resident fox and mice, her own alimentary system (careful always to chew and spit out the plants who use poisons to protect themselves!) In a museum in New York City, with the help of the director himself, Barlow reunites osage orange with the molar of its missing partner, the ancient Mammoth. The author's documentation is solid and thorough; her skill in incorporating and analyzing the literature that bolsters her book results in a delightful reading experience without a single stuffy or dull moment.

Amid the theory, the science, and the fun, a poignant message emerges about extinctions and the role we humans have played and will continue to play in the epic of evolution. Throughout her book, the author speaks in the voice of a scientist/writer on behalf of the "trees who remember" their extinct partners. At the end, however, Barlow crosses that scientific boundary to enter the realm of ritual in a moving memorial service to the missing Mammoth. The creator of the ceremony, fellow scientist Paul Martin, writes, "The service ended with a moving soliloquy from a Ms. Honey Locust of New York City. Ms. Locust sported a green hat bedecked with long, spiraling pods. Honey Locust trees may be streetwise, we learned, but their pods miss the megafauna." The final voice we hear springs straight from the hearts of Ms. Honey Locust and her advocate, Connie Barlow. On behalf of the ghosts, we are asked to remember the world as the trees remember, to find our human place among the widows and the bereaved, to enter a ritual time. Barlow delivers a final passionate plea to all of us to fulfill an evolutionary role we inherit as a result of the loss of the ancient mammals. "Thirteen thousand years ago, the responsibility for dispersing edible, large-fruited plants in the Americas fell to the humans. The present demands another profound passage in stewardship. . . When will we put an end to this saga of loss upon loss and resolve to undertake what [Thomas] Berry calls `the Great Work' of ecological and evolutionary restoration?" When, indeed?