Opening our minds to conserve open spaces

heterogeneity in a common garden. Cheplick also develops excellent examples from many other sources throughout the text. Pillars of plant population biology—Turreson; Clausen, Keck andHeisey; Snaydon; Bradshaw and others—are featured prominently, but also included are strong examples from recent studies focusing on, for example, serpentine adaptation, molecular genetics of adaptation, and ecotypic adaptation to soil moisture in Avena barbata . Overall, coverage is broad and well balanced. Cheplick emphasizes empiricism and microevolution in this book. You won ’ t fi nd any phylogenetic trees among the fi gures, and “phylogeny,” as well as “speciation” and “life history” are among the terms missing from the index, surprisingly, for a book on evolution. Although Cheplick includes an uncontroversial rationale for why phenomena such as selection, local adaptation, and microevolutionary processes should be considered part of plant evolutionary ecology, the justifi cation for omissions from this circumscription, such as those mentioned above, could use clearer articulation. Evolutionary ecology is admittedly a big topic, and Cheplick seems to have managed it by drawing a bright line around the population. Nonetheless, much of what is covered bumps up conspicuously against speciation or other macroevolutionary phenomena. Ecotypic differentiation and local adaptation portend reproductive isolation, and several species used to illustrate local adaptation in the text (e.g., Lasthenia , Mimulus , Anthoxanthum , to mention a few) have published estimates showing reproductive isolation or restricted gene fl ow among ecotypes or populations. Perhaps this is more noticeable because of a spate of recent studies implicating ecological phenomena in the evolution of reproductive isolation and species. Similarly, after a nice section summarizing evidence for pollinatormediated selection on fl owers, Cheplik nods toward studies with Aquilegia and Lithophragma to underscore the potential for coevolutionary dynamics between pollinators and fl owers, but falls short of sharing evidence, for example, supporting hypotheses of cospeciation between Ficus and Agaonidae or between Yucca and Prodoxidae. The distinction here seems to fall on a rather fi ne line. In the same chapter, Cheplick provides an excellent summary of evidence for populationand genotypiclevel plant adaptation to herbivores, as well as studies involving Datura and Solanum showing how different herbivore species can impose contrasting patterns of selection on resistance. Given this context, it seems odd not to mention examples of evolution within plant lineages in herbivore defense —May Berenbaum ’ s classic work with coumarin evolution or Anurag Agrawal ’ s work with milkweeds come to mind. Despite such shortcomings, Cheplick ’ s treatment is a thorough reference for the areas covered. This book will certainly remain at hand on my bookshelf, and I recommend it to my students.