Table of Contents

Legacy Continuum.- The descent of humans and the Darwinian unification of all life.- Ida: A link to human evolution.- Darwin’s theory of evolution: Survival of nature’s fit!.- The life and research of JBS Haldane in India with special reference to Charles Darwin.- Charles Darwin: A driving force for humanity toward agnosticism.- Viruses, Microbes and Fungi.- Phylogeographic evolution of plant viruses.- Evolution of HIV-1 in India.- Darwin and microbial evolution.- Evolutionary relationships among cyanobacteria, algae and plants: Revisited in the light of Darwinism.- Biodiversity, phylogeny and evolution of fungi.- Insects: Evolution in Action.- The origin of reproductive isolating mechanisms is an important event in the process of speciation: Evidences from Drosophila.- Adaptive radiation and insects.- Insights from mosquito evolution: Patterns, tempo and speciation.- The saga of pollination biology.- Genomics.- Darwinian evolution and post developments in genomics.- Pathogen pressure and molecular evolutionary genetics of innate immunity genes in humans.- Unique Case Studies.- Macroevolution in relation to the drift models of the Indian plate.- Testing the melanism-desiccation hypothesis: A case study in Darwinian evolution.- Origin and evolution of human malaria parasite, P. falciparum and P. vivax.- Evolutionary trends in soil-inhabiting alaimid nematodes.- Evolution of the cerebral cortex in amniotes: Anatomical consideration of neuronal types.- Medicinal and aromatic plants: A case example of evolving secondary metabolome and biochemical pathway diversity.- Conservation of Himalayan bioresources: An ecological, economical and evolutionary perspective.

Reviews

From the reviews:“The editor has done a commendable job for having chosen topics that would interest everyone across the scientific fraternity. … Each chapter is contributed by subject experts in their own chosen field of research, and is self-illustrative providing a good resource of references for supplementary readings. This book recapitulates Darwin’s hallmark contribution and is indeed a good read and a must-have collection for college libraries.” (Vas Dev, Current Science, Vol. 98 (11), June, 2010)