|
Bernhard Rensch
Bernhard Rensch (21 January 1900 – 4 April 1990) was a German evolutionary biologist and ornithologist who did field work in Indonesia and India. Starting his scientific career with pro- Lamarckian views, he shifted to selectionism and became one of the architects of the modern synthesis in evolutionary biology, which he popularised in Germany. Besides his work on how environmental factors influenced the evolution of geographically isolated populations and on evolution above the species level, which contributed to the modern synthesis, he also worked extensively in the area of animal behavior (ethology) and on philosophical aspects of biological science. His education and scientific work were interrupted by service in the German military during both World War I and World War II. Biography Rensch was born in Thale and as a young boy, he took an interest in observing the natural world and discovered a talent for drawing and painting. He served in the German army from 1917 to 192 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thale
Thale () is a town in the Harz (district), Harz district in Saxony-Anhalt in central Germany. Located at the steep northeastern rim of the Harz mountain range, it is known for the scenic Bode Gorge stretching above the town centre. Geography The town is situated on the river Bode (river), Bode, approximately west of Quedlinburg. Served by Transdev Sachsen-Anhalt trains, Thale Hauptbahnhof is the terminus of the Magdeburg–Thale railway line. The town has access to the Bundesstraße 6n highway. Divisions The town Thale consists of Thale proper and the following ''Ortschaften'' or municipal divisions:Hauptsatzung der Stadt Thale December 2014. *Allrode *Altenbrak (incl. Alsmfeld and Wendefurth) *Friedrichsbrunn *Neinstedt *Stecklenberg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
August Weismann
August Friedrich Leopold Weismann (; 17 January 18345 November 1914) was a German evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist. Fellow German Ernst Mayr ranked him as the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin. Weismann became the Director of the Zoological Institute and the first Professor of Zoology at University of Freiburg, Freiburg. His main contribution involved germ plasm theory, at one time also known as Weismannism,Romanes, George John. ''An examination of Weismannism''. The Open court publishing company in Chicago 189/ref> according to which inheritance (in a multicellular animal) only takes place by means of the germ cells—the gametes such as egg cells and sperm cells. Other cells of the body—somatic cells—do not function as agents of heredity. The effect is one-way: germ cells produce somatic cells and are not affected by anything the somatic cells learn or therefore any ability an individual acquires during its life. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linnean Society Of London
The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collections, and publishes academic journals and books on plant and animal biology. The society also awards a number of prestigious medals and prizes. A product of the Age of Enlightenment, 18th-century enlightenment, the society is the oldest extant biological society in the world and is historically important as the venue for the first public presentation of the theory of evolution by natural selection on 1 July 1858. The patron of the society is Anne, Princess Royal. Honorary members include: King Charles III of the United Kingdom, Emeritus Emperor Akihito of Japan, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden (both of the latter have active interests in natural history), and the eminent naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenboroug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rensch's Rule
Rensch's rule is a biological rule on allometrics, concerning the relationship between the extent of sexual size dimorphism and which sex is larger. Across species within a lineage, size dimorphism increases with increasing body size when the male is the larger sex, and decreases with increasing average body size when the female is the larger sex. The rule was proposed by the evolutionary biologist Bernhard Rensch in 1950. After controlling for confounding factors such as evolutionary history, an increase in average body size makes the difference in body size larger if the species has larger males, and smaller if it has larger females. Some studies propose that this is due to sexual bimaturism, which causes male traits to diverge faster and develop for a longer period of time. The correlation between sexual size dimorphism and body size is hypothesized to be a result of an increase in male-male competition in larger species, a result of limited environmental resources, fuell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gloger's Rule
Gloger's rule is an ecogeographical rule which states that within a species of endotherms, more heavily pigmented forms tend to be found in more humid environments, e.g. near the equator. It was named after the zoologist Constantin Wilhelm Lambert Gloger, who first remarked upon this phenomenon in 1833 in a review of covariation of climate and avian plumage color. Erwin Stresemann later noted that the idea had been expressed even earlier by Peter Simon Pallas in ''Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica'' (1811). Gloger found that birds in more humid habitats tended to be darker than their relatives from regions with higher aridity. Over 90% of 52 North American bird species studies conform to this rule. One explanation of Gloger's rule in the case of birds appears to be the increased resistance of dark feathers to feather- or hair-degrading bacteria such as ''Bacillus licheniformis''. Feathers in humid environments have a greater bacterial load, and humid environments are more suitable for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allen's Rule
Allen's rule is an ecogeographical rule formulated by Joel Asaph Allen in 1877, broadly stating that animals adapted to cold climates have shorter and thicker limbs and bodily Appendage, appendages than animals adapted to warm climates. More specifically, it states that the body surface-area-to-volume ratio for Homeothermy, homeothermic animals varies with the average temperature of the habitat to which they are adapted (i.e. the ratio is low in cold climates and high in hot climates). Explanation Allen's rule predicts that endotherm, endothermic animals with the same body volume should have different surface areas that will either aid or impede their heat dissipation. Because animals living in cold climates need to conserve as much heat as possible, Allen's rule predicts that they should have evolved comparatively low surface area-to-volume ratios to minimize the surface area by which they dissipate heat, allowing them to retain more heat. For animals living in warm climates, Al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biological Rules
A biological rule or biological law is a generalized law, principle, or rule of thumb formulated to describe patterns observed in living organisms. Biological rules and laws are often developed as succinct, broadly applicable ways to explain complex phenomena or salient observations about the ecology and biogeographical distributions of plant and animal species around the world, though they have been proposed for or extended to all types of organisms. Many of these regularities of ecology and biogeography are named after the biologists who first described them. From the birth of their science, biologists have sought to explain apparent regularities in observational data. In his biology, Aristotle inferred rules governing differences between live-bearing tetrapods (in modern terms, terrestrial placental mammals). Among his rules were that brood size decreases with adult body mass, while lifespan increases with gestation period and with body mass, and fecundity decreases with li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taxa
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and given a particular ranking, especially if and when it is accepted or becomes established. It is very common, however, for taxonomists to remain at odds over what belongs to a taxon and the criteria used for inclusion, especially in the context of rank-based (" Linnaean") nomenclature (much less so under phylogenetic nomenclature). If a taxon is given a formal scientific name, its use is then governed by one of the nomenclature codes specifying which scientific name is correct for a particular grouping. Initial attempts at classifying and ordering organisms (plants and animals) were presumably set forth in prehistoric times by hunter-gatherers, as suggested by the fairly sophisticated folk taxonomies. Much later, Aristotle, and later st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Münster
Münster (; ) is an independent city#Germany, independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a Münster (region), state district capital. Münster was the location of the Münster Rebellion, Anabaptist rebellion during the Protestant Reformation and the site of the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia ending the Thirty Years' War in 1648. Today, it is known as the bicycle capital of Germany. Münster gained the status of a ''Großstadt'' (major city) with more than 100,000 inhabitants in 1915. , there are 300,000 people living in the city, with about 61,500 students, only some of whom are recorded in the official population statistics as having their primary residence in Münster. Münster is a part of the international EUREGIO, Euregio region with more than 1,000,000 inhabitants (Enschede, Hengelo, Gronau, North Rhine-Westphalia, G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ernst Mayr
Ernst Walter Mayr ( ; ; 5 July 1904 – 3 February 2005) was a German-American evolutionary biologist. He was also a renowned Taxonomy (biology), taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, Philosophy of biology, philosopher of biology, and History of science, historian of science. His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the Modern synthesis (20th century), modern evolutionary synthesis of Gregor Mendel, Mendelian genetics, systematics, and Charles Darwin, Darwinian evolution, and to the development of the Species, biological species concept. Although Charles Darwin and others posited that multiple species could evolve from a single common ancestor, the mechanism by which this occurred was not understood, creating the ''species problem''. Ernst Mayr approached the problem with a new definition for species. In his book ''Systematics and the Origin of Species'' (1942) he wrote that a species is not just a group of Morphology (biology), morphologically sim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Kentucky University
Western Kentucky University (WKU) is a public university in Bowling Green, Kentucky, United States. It was founded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1906, though its roots reach back a few decades earlier. It operates regional campuses in Glasgow, Kentucky, Glasgow, Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Elizabethtown-Fort Knox, and Owensboro, Kentucky, Owensboro. The main campus sits atop a hill overlooking the Barren River valley. History The roots of Western Kentucky University go back to 1876 with the founding by A. W. Mell of the privately owned Glasgow Normal School and Business College in Glasgow, Kentucky. This moved to Bowling Green in 1884 and became the Southern Normal School and Business College. In 1890, Potter College was opened as a private women's college by Pleasant J. Potter. In 1906, Henry Hardin Cherry sold the Southern Normal School and became president of the Western Kentucky State Normal School, which had just been created by an act of the Kentucky General Assembly. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polytypic Taxon
In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and given a particular ranking, especially if and when it is accepted or becomes established. It is very common, however, for taxonomists to remain at odds over what belongs to a taxon and the criteria used for inclusion, especially in the context of rank-based (" Linnaean") nomenclature (much less so under phylogenetic nomenclature). If a taxon is given a formal scientific name, its use is then governed by one of the nomenclature codes specifying which scientific name is correct for a particular grouping. Initial attempts at classifying and ordering organisms (plants and animals) were presumably set forth in prehistoric times by hunter-gatherers, as suggested by the fairly sophisticated folk taxonomies. Much later, Aristotle, and later still ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
