Plant Variation and Evolution

David Briggs is Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College at the University of Cambridge. He has a lifelong interest in evolution, genetics, conservation and taxonomy. He is also the author of Plant Microevolution and Conservation in Human-influenced Ecosystems (Cambridge, 2009), which won the British Ecological Society's 2011 Marsh Book of the Year award. Stuart Max Walters (1920–2005) - a former Fellow of King's College, Cambridge - was a renowned taxonomist and conservationist and author/editor of major works on the taxonomy and distribution of European plants, including Atlas of the British Flora, Flora Europaea and The European Garden Flora. He was Director of the University of Cambridge Botanic Garden from 1973 until his retirement in 1983.

Preface; Acknowledgements; Note on names of plants; List of abbreviations; 1. Investigating plant variation and evolution; 2. From Ray to Darwin; 3. Early work on biometry; 4. Early work on the basis of individual variation; 5. Post-Darwinian ideas about evolution; 6. DNA: towards an understanding of heredity and molecular evolution; 7. Breeding systems; 8. Infraspecific variation and the ecotype concept; 9. Pattern and process in plant populations; 10. Pattern and process: factors interacting with natural selection; 11. Populations: origins and extinctions; 12. Species and speciation: concepts and models; 13. Allopatric speciation and hybridisation; 14. Abrupt speciation by polyploidy; 15. The species concept; 16. Flowering plant evolution: advances, challenges and prospects; 17. Historical biogeography; 18. The evolutionary impact of human activities; 19. The taxonomic challenge ahead; 20. Conservation: from protection to restoration and beyond; Index.