Customer Reviews

Variety of Life

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is about breadth, not depth. From the perspective of this book, Passeriformes are about as interesting as all of the little rodents scurrying around, regardless of what birders think about them. And the book DOES explicitly place lice in their proper perspective, to correct an error made by another reviewer. There are all kinds of interesting small articles that treat particularly interesting aspects of certain groups of organisms: a vertable gold mind of fascinating relationships. Don't go to this book to find out about particular plants an animals, but to find out about the vast diversity of life on this planet and how it all relates together.

This work excels at providing the reader with information about a diverse group of organisms. The line drawings and the schematic "evolutionary tree" diagrams are very helpful. For the price, this book is a steal. However, I must mention that it is obvious that the author has severe gaps in his knowledge (which is to be expected, since he is covering everything). For example, Passeriformes include over 1/2 of all birds and he basically just mentions the word. Instead he describes some of the other orders. With his coverage of insects he is also not complete. Several orders are completely left off that any insect lover would recognize (i.e. lice are missing).

The reason why this is not good is that it appears that he is giving a complete coverage of a group down to a certain level and including all of the representative groups of that level. He should be consistent (if covering families then include all families within a group, or all orders not 27 orders and leave off several obvious ones).

Colin Tudge has produced a remarkable book that captures the complexities of the Earth's biota. Probably already somewhat out of date (phylogenic studies are producing new results at a fantastic rate) this book is still a necessary reference for biologists everywhere. The old two-kingdom concept, which gave way to a five-kingdom concept, is now a multi-kingdom concept. At the very least we should have six kingdoms- Animalia, Fungi, Plantae, Protoctista, Archaebacteria and Eubacteria. The exact final number is yet to be decided. However, it can be easily argued that the Protoctista and the Bacteria could be broken into even more kingdoms and indeed several authors now talk of at least three domains, containing procaryote (bacterial) and eucaryote kingdoms.

All of this is primarily a result of studies on DNA and other chemicals of life. This research has especially shown the bacterial and "single-celled" organism world to be much more complex than anyone ever thought. From slime molds to cyanobacteria and oak trees to humans, the variation on life on this planet is what fascinates biologists. Tudge's book is a very good review of this extreme diversity and gives us a very good reason to avoid destroying it! Read this book if you are interested in the diversity of life on Earth.

This book pulls together an enormous amount of information and makes it digestible to the average undergraduate - no small feat. It's scope is magnificent, as is its treatment of fundamental concepts of evolution. Although I think there are some problems with the sections on extinct birds and cetaceans (based on new discoveries), Tudge does as well as anybody could in defining outgroups and sister taxa, always erring on the conservative side. I think the most novel and thought-provoking portion of the text concerns the number of kingdoms we might now wish to recognize - I discuss Tudge's reasoning for this with my biology undergraduates and it never fails to make an impression. A splendid accomplishment, and I'm waiting eagerly for a second edition, and a third, and so on. Well done Dr. Tudge, and sincere thanks.

This book is an amazing read. With clear, concise and lyrical prose Colin Tudge accomplishes what I've always sought in my education--a well rounded synthesis of biological theories and principles explained in context of the diversity of life. This book gave me the perspectives and deeper insights about systematics needed to become a good naturalist and ecologist--perspective that weren't explicitly taught in my college biology courses. The phylogenetic tree illustrations are a brilliant, accessible reference. In today's world where molecular biology and reductionistic perspectives dominate our understanding of life, Tudge successfully brings back the importance to understanding and appreciating the whole organism.

Professor Tudge has done all of us a great service with this terrific book. He lays out a clear way for generalists to get a basic understanding on the way life on this planet is related at present and into the past to our best understanding of life's origins.

He explains a variety of classification systems (and some specialists might disagree with his characterizations - but that is a smallish point to those of us who aren't specialists) and provides wonderful illustrations that give us a broad sweep of how the branches flow together in the past. He explains the current limits of our understanding. And he has a wonderful treatment of the Domains as currently understood - Bacteria, Archae, and Eucarya. Obviously, most of the book is on Eucarya because that is most interesting to us humans, but the bulk of life on earth is bacteria and that is kind of interesting to understand.

This book really updates my understanding of what I was taught in 7th grade biology too many years ago. I think every bright high school student ought to read it as well as anyone who wants to understand the amazing range of life now living and that has lived on this earth. You won't look at your life here the same way ever again.

The Science in this book is very good. It describes the methods of Cladistics and the state of the art in Systematics and Taxonomy. The position of the inventor of Cladistics in the History of Science is somewhat exagerated (he is rated at the level of Darwin), but that was to be expected from a fan. However, the author has a bone to pick and does so every other chapter, giving a show of bad Philosophy (a discipline that scientists tend to overlook and scorn) and bad Logic (which is worst). His argument goes like this: "Cladistics is a revolution similar to Copernicanism, because it has removed Homo sapiens from the upper position in nature, by increasing the number of kingdoms in our classifications. We used to have two (animals and plants), now we have over fifty (because almost every single unicellular is now given the kingdom level). Therefore we are unimportant (just one in fifty where we were one in two)." The same argument would prove that Rembrandt cannot be considered one of the greatest painters, by building a cladistic tree of painting and deciding to call every primitive sample a School or a Civilization. Importance has nothing to do with origins or numbers. Cladistics provides useful information about origins, but a modern classification system should take other things into account, such as complexity, of which living beings currently display five levels: 1. Naked nucleic acids (such as viroids and the putative origin of life). 2. Sets of nucleic acids inside a cell (Procariota). 3. Sets of Procariota in a cell (Eucariota). 4. Sets of Eucariota in an organism (animals, plants, fungi...) and 5. Sets of animals (beehives, anthills and human societies). This outlook, completely overlooked by Cladistics, still puts Homo sapiens at the top from a functional point of view. We should not forget that human beings are the only single species who has dominated the Biosphere, and attempted to control the evolution of, or intentionally destroyed, other species. But for many scientists such as Tudge, vilifying Homo sapiens seems to be one of the main objectives. However, the book is very useful if we skip the ideological diatribe which surfaces from time to time. This is the reason why I've decided to rate it with four stars.

An imposing book by a major science writer, Tudge rightly subtitles this work "a celebration." Although at first glance the book seems overwhelming, Tudge has broken down his feast of life into easily consumed portions. After an excellent overview of the history of classifying life, he allows the reader to choose among the many types of animals and plants. One can jump to insects, birds, fish or reptiles for more detailed evolutionary accounts and modern examples. Unable to resist, i skimmed over a few more esoteric examples to settle down to Primates and Hominids. This section provides a superb overview of current knowledge, distinguishing clearly what is known and what is supposed. This was familiar territory but delving in the other sections proved equally rewarding. However, this also suggests a warning that the book is not a "cover-to-cover" exercise.

Tudge opens with the problem facing many new students of biological sciences - how to deal with the immensity of information confronting them. There are, he notes, over two million species described already. No-one disputes the number is far below the actual total life contains - but what is the realistic total? Estimates range as high as 100 million - an almost inconceivable figure. He accepts the more likely total as around thirty million, recognizing that such numbers remain out of human ken. From this, he builds his case that classification systems are necessary. What's required is a classification method that anyone can grasp. He finds the solution in the idea proposed by German entomologist Willi Hennig - cladistics. This system arranges life by characteristics, avoiding confusing generalities and the arcane mysteries of genetics. As Tudge argues, cladistics has become fourth phase of classification systems, and the one likely to endure.

The "technical" sections of the book, covering the multitude of life forms each open with a descriptive essay followed by a "tree" of relationship among various species. This structure makes the book an excellent reference work and will keep it valuable for many years. The illustrations are designed to impart general information, not scientific detail. Neither are they simplistic as the supporting comment provides pointers to consider when viewing them. Tudge groups the text and graphics nicely, allowing visual and text comparison without constant page flipping.

As with any author confronting the immense cargo of information available in biology, Tudge was forced into a selective process in creating a bibliography. It's not an enviable task. The list appears sparse, a heavily pruned tree arranged by chapters. He indicates his preferred references, but only by using his sources will you discover whether more bountiful reading is listed in them. This lack in no way impairs the worth of this effort, however. There are countless book lists available. Anyone with an interest in life will treasure this volume.

I think this book took an enormous amount of work from Colin Tudge. Although he has a Scientific background he is certainly not a toxonomist. I'm not really versed in Taxonomy myself so for me the book is great. The prose he uses and the simplicity of his language makes it easy to understand what he has to say. I don't know why, perhaps this subject is so attracting for me, that I might tend to be obliging with the book. The truth is I felt rejoicing every time I read a couple of pages and study the drawings. It's like making an atemporal journey, just fantastic. I strongly recommend it.

This and "The Tree of Life: A Phylogenic Classification" (Lecointre/LeGuyader) are essential to the library of anyone who is curious about evolution and phylogenic relationships of living and extinct animals. Of the two I prefer "The Tree of Life" because the text includes catalogs of unique characters for many species. I am a teaching volunteer at a natural history museum and refer to these two volumes often.