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This is a list of important publications in biology, organized by field.
Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important:
- Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic
- Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly
- Influence – A publication which has significantly influenced the world or has had a massive impact on the teaching of biology.
Anatomy
De humani corporis fabrica
- Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (On the fabric of the human body in seven books), 1543.
Description: A textbook of human anatomy.
Gray's Anatomy
- Henry Gray, Henry Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body, 1858.
- Online version 1918.
Description: Henry Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body, commonly known as Gray's Anatomy, is an anatomy textbook widely regarded as a classic work on human anatomy. The book was first published under the title Gray's Anatomy: Descriptive and Surgical in Great Britain in 1858, and the following year in the United States. The book's British author died after the publication of the 1860 second edition, at the age of 34, but his much-praised book was continued by others and on November 24, 2004, the 39th British edition was released.
Importance: Influence, Introduction
Biophysics
Botany
Species Plantarum
- Carolus Linnaeus, Species Plantarum, 1753
- online at gallica
- See Species Plantarum in the Biodiversity Heritage Library, 1753.
- See Species Plantarum in the Biodiversity Heritage Library, 1762-63.
Description: A two-volume work, going through many editions (ever expanding), listing all plants then known, made accessible by an ordering in (artificial) classes and orders, and giving every listed species a two-part name (binomial nomenclature or binary name). With this book anybody, by counting the male and female parts present in a flower, could get to a listing of the genera the plant in question belongs to. This is the prime starting point of botanical nomenclature. It was also the starting point of a great upsurge in the popularity of Science. Arguably the most important publication in systematic biology ever. Without Linnaeus there might have been no Darwin.
Importance: The system of bionomial nomenclature that bears his name effectively began with this work.[1]
Cell biology
Developmental biology
Ecology
Biotic community
- Eug Warming. Plantesamfund- Grundtræk af den økologiske Plantegeografi (in Danish). P.G. Philipsens Forlag, Copenhagen. 335 pp. English edition Oecology of Plants: An Introduction to the Study of Plant Communities (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1909).
Description: This book turned descriptive faunistic/floristic biogeography in a new discipline, ecology. Based on his botanical investigations from Tropics to tundra, Warmings aim was to explain how similar environmental challenges (drought, flooding, cold, salt, herbivory etc.) was solved by plants in similar ways everywhere in the World, despite the different decent of species on different continents.
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough.
Competitive exclusion
- Georgii Frantsevich Gause. The struggle for existence, 1936. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.
Description: In this book Gause formulated his Competitive exclusion principle, through experiments involving Paramecium. The principle holds that no two species can co-exist for long if they have to compete for highly similar resources. This outcome has two preconditions: 1) panmixis of individuals of competing species, 2) the environment is homogeneous in time and space. These conditions may be met with by aquatic microorganisms grown under laboratory conditions. However, in most real-world biotic communities, both conditions are likely to be violated from moderately to strongly. Due to its simplicity and intuitiveness, Gause's Competitive exclusion principle has had a great impact on subsequent ecological thinking.
Importance: Topic creator.
Entomology
Evolutionary biology
Histoire Naturelle
- Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon: Histoire Naturelle, 1749-1788.
Description: Until the publication of this encyclopedia much of the scientific community thought that all animals were created together by God before about 6,000 years. Not only did this 44 volume encyclopedia contained all descriptive biological knowledge of its time, it offered a new theory. One hundred years before Darwin, Buffon claimed that man and ape might have a common ancestor. His work also had significant impact on ecology.
Importance: "It is no exaggeration to claim that virtually all the well-known writers of the Enlightenment, and even of later generations, in France as well as in other European countries were Buffonians, either directly or indirectly."[2]
On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection
- Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection, 1858
Description: In September 1838 Charles Darwin conceived his theory of natural selection as the cause of evolution, then as well as developing his career as a naturalist worked privately on finding evidence and answering possible objections, circulating essays written in 1842 and 1844 to his friends. Wallace, who was corresponding with Darwin from Borneo, arrived independently at the same theory. He wrote his paper On The Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type in February 1858 and sent it to Darwin, who received it on 18 June 1858 and passed it to Lyell and Hooker. They arranged for a joint publication of Wallace's paper and an extract from Darwin's 1844 essay; this was read to the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858, and printed in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. Zoology 3: 46-50. It had little impact at the time, but spurred Darwin to write an "abstract" of the "big book" Natural Selection he was then working on; this condensed version was published in November 1859 as On the Origin of Species.
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough
The Origin of Species
- Charles Darwin: On the Origin of Species, John Murray, London, 1859.,
- Freeman, R. B. (1977). "On the Origin of Species". The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist (Second ed.). Cannon House Folkestone, Kent, England: Wm Dawson & Sons Ltd. Retrieved on 2007-01-14
- Origin of Species, 6th Edition (text)
Description: The Origin of Species is one of the hallmark works of biology. In this shortened abstract of his intended "big book" on Natural Selection, Darwin details his theory that organisms gradually evolve through a process of natural selection, and this process leads to the formation of new species. It was first published on November 24, 1859 and the initial print run was oversubscribed by booksellers at Murray's Autumn sale the day before. Darwin presents a theory of natural selection that is in most aspects identical to the theories now accepted by scientists. He carefully argues out this theory by presenting accumulated scientific evidence from his voyage on the Beagle in the 1830s, and from his continuing studies up to the date of publication. His studies continued with the book being revised accordingly; the most extensive revisions were the 6th and final edition.
Importance: Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, with its tree-like model of branching common descent, has become the unifying theory of the life sciences. The theory explains the diversity of living organisms and their adaptation to the environment. It makes sense of the geologic record, biogeography, parallels in embryonic development, biological homologies, vestigiality, cladistics, phylogenetics and other fields, with unrivalled explanatory power; it has also become essential to applied sciences such as medicine and agriculture.[3][4]
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection
- Ronald Fisher: The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, Oxford University Press; 1930, New Ed edition (May 1, 2000) ISBN 0-19-850440-3.
Description: In the preface, Fisher considers some general points, including that there must be an understanding of natural selection distinct from that of evolution, and that the then-recent advances in the field of genetics (see history of genetics) now allowed this. In the first chapter, Fisher considers the nature of inheritance, rejecting blending inheritance in favour of particulate inheritance. The second chapter introduces Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection. The third considers the evolution of dominance, which Fisher believed was strongly influenced by modifiers. The last five chapters (8-12) include Fisher's more idiosyncratic views on eugenics.
Importance: One of the founding works of population genetics.[5]
Evolutionary developmental biology
Ontogeny and Phylogeny
- Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, Harvard University Press, 1977
Description: Critically revisits Haeckel's idea that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." Gould presents heterochrony as a concept that allows us to describe the majority of developmental processes in evolution. This book played a significant role at the time by bringing the evolutionary biology community back to examine developmental biology, ignored for many years.
Importance: Influence
Genetics
Experiments on Plant Hybridization
- Gregor Mendel Experiments on Plant Hybridization, Proceedings of the Natural History Society, 1866.
- Online version
Description: Experiments on Plant Hybridization was the result after years spent studying genetic traits in pea plants. In his paper, Mendel compared seven discrete traits. Through experimentation, Mendel discovered that one inheritable trait would invariably be dominant to its recessive alternative. This model, later known as Mendelian inheritance or Mendelian genetics, provided an alternative to blending inheritance, which was the prevailing theory at the time.
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Impact
What is Life?
- Schrödinger, Erwin (2001). What is life? the physical aspects of the living cell (Repr. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. ISBN 0521427088.
Description: Based on a series of public lectures delivered at Trinity College, Dublin. Schrödinger's lecture focused on one important question: "how can the events in space and time which take place within the spatial boundary of a living organism be accounted for by physics and chemistry?"[6] In the book, he introduced the idea of an "aperiodic crystal" that contained genetic information in its configuration of covalent chemical bonds.
Importance: In the 1950s, Schrödinger's idea of an aperiodic crystal stimulated enthusiasm for discovering the genetic molecule. Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, credited Schrödinger's book with presenting an early theoretical description of how the storage of genetic information would work, and acknowledged the book as a source of inspiration for his initial research.[7]
Microbiology
Molecular biology
Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids
- Francis Crick and James D. Watson, Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids, Nature 171, 737–738 (1953)
- Online version (Original text)
Description: Crick and Watson described a molecular structure for DNA that was consistent with X-ray diffraction data and had implications for the nature of ineritance.
Importance: Discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule.
Cognitive neuroscience & Psychobiology
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis
- Wilson, E. O Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1975.,
Description: Wilson introduced the term sociobiology as an attempt to explain the evolutionary mechanics behind social behaviors such as altruism, aggression, and nurturance. Wilson's book sparked one of the great scientific controversies in biology of the 20th century.[8][9][10]
How the Mind Works
- Pinker, S., How the Mind Works (ISBN 0-393-31848-6),
Description: A synthesis of many of the ideas of Evolutionary Psychology. This field posits that there are insights into the way that the mind works if you view our cognitive capabilities as the adaptive result of evolution.
Importance: Synthesizes the work of many Evolutionry Psychologists and provides a comprehensive starting point for inquiries into (exactly as the title states) how the mind works.
Systems biology
Taxonomy
Systema Naturae
- Carolus Linnaeus, Systema Naturae
- Full title: "Systema naturæ per regna tria naturæ, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis" or translated: "System of nature through the three kingdoms of nature, according to classes, orders, genera and species, with characters, differences, synonyms, places".
- Edition: 10th
- Year: 1758-1759 (two volumes)
Description: Classified animals using a hierarchical system with 5 levels: Kingdom, class, order, genus and species.
Importance: The starting point of zoological nomenclature.[11]
Zoology
Naturalis Historia
Description: Encyclopedia of nature. It included many areas that are not considered to be part of nature sciences today - from geography, botany, zoology to painting. The encyclopedia was also novel with respect to its structure. It was to first book to use references, table of contents and tables of animals characteristics.
Importance: Impact
The Natural History of Selborne
Description: In these letters, whose full title is the Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, White published his observations on birds and many other aspects of the natural world that he observed near where he lived.
Importance: Impact
See also
References
- ^ Knapp, Sandra, What's in a name? A history of taxonomy : Linnaeus and the birth of modern taxonomy, Natural History Museum, London, retrieved 2011-06-17
- ^ Mayr 2000, page 330
- ^ Biography, The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online, 21 January 2009, retrieved 2009-04-23
- ^ Larson, Edward J. (2004), Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory, New York: Modern Library, ISBN 0-8129-6849-2
- ^ Bowler, Peter J. (2003). Evolution : the history of an idea (3rd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. p. 328. ISBN 9780520236936.
- ^ Margulis, Lynn. & Sagan, Dorion. (1995). What Is Life? (pg. 1). Berkeley: University of California Press.
- ^ Julian F. Derry (2004). "Book Review: What Is Life? By Erwin Schrödinger". Human Nature Review. Retrieved 2007-07-15.
- ^ Cronin, Helena (1993). The ant and the peacock : altruism and sexual selection from Darwin to today (1st paperback ed. ed.). Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge. ISBN 9780521457651.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help) - ^ Segerstråle, Ullica (2001). Defenders of the truth : the sociobiology debate (1st issued as an Oxford Univ. Press paperback. ed.). Oxford Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0192862150.
- ^ Alcock, John (2001). The triumph of sociobiology ([Online-Ausg.] ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195143836.
- ^ Bellows, T. S.; Fisher, T. W. (1999). "Taxonomy and biological control". Handbook of Biological Control: Principles and Applications of Biological Control. Academic Press. pp. 45–55. ISBN 9780122573057.
{{cite book}}: More than one of|author=and|last=specified (help)
- Brock, Thomas D., ed. (1999). Milestones in microbiology : 1546 to 1940 (3rd edition ed.). Washington, DC: ASM Press. ISBN 9781555811426.
{{cite book}}:|edition=has extra text (help) - Gall, Joseph G., ed. (2001). Landmark papers in cell biology : selected research articles celebrating forty years of the American Society for Cell Biology. Plainview, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. ISBN 9780879696023.
- Peters, James Arthur (1959). Classic papers in genetics. Prentice-Hall.
- Linder, Patrick; Shore, David; Hall, Michael N., eds. (2004). Landmark papers in yeast biology. Woodbury N.Y.: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. ISBN 978-087969643-6.
- Mayr, Ernst (2000). The growth of biological thought : diversity, evolution, and inheritance. 12th printing. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674364462.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Stent, Gunther Siegmund, ed. (1965). Papers on bacterial viruses. Little, Brown.
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