Carnival of Evolution #67: Wallace Centenary Edition

This month's Carnival of Evolution is hosted by a group of "foreigners"¹ at The Geneological World of Phylogenetic Networks. David Morrison at Uppsala, Sweden wrote the post. Read it at Carnival of Evolution, No. 67 — Wallace centenary edition.

Charles Darwin's Tree of Life metaphor (from 1859) has become world-famous. However, Alfred Russel Wallace, who independently developed the idea of evolution by means of natural selection, had already used a very similar image in 1855, when he noted: "the analogy of a branching tree [is] the best mode of representing the natural arrangement of species ... a complicated branching of the lines of affinity, as intricate as the twigs of a gnarled oak ... we have only fragments of this vast system, the stem and main branches being represented by extinct species of which we have no knowledge, while a vast mass of limbs and boughs and minute twigs and scattered leaves is what we have to place in order, and determine the true position each originally occupied with regard to the others".

This past year has been one in which many people commemorated the death of Wallace (1823-1913), and so it seems appropriate to join them for the final summary of 2013's posts at the Carnival of Evolution.

The next Carnival of Evolution will be at Byte Size Biology. Nobody has volunteered to host the February edition.

If you want to host a Carnival of Evolution please contact Bjørn Østman. Bjørn is always looking for someone to host the Carnival of Evolution. He would prefer someone who has not hosted before but repeat hosts are more than welcome right now! Bjørn is threatening to name YOU as host even if you don't volunteer! Contact him at the Carnival of Evolution blog. You can send articles directly to him or you can submit your articles at Carnival of Evolution although you now have to register to post a submission. Please alert Bjørn or the upcoming host if you see an article that should be included in next month's. You don't have to be the author to nominate a post.

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1. That's anyone who isn't Canadian. It's a very large group.

Posted in: Evolutionary Biology