Fundamentals of Molecular Evolution (2nd edn).

Dan Graur and Wen-Hsiung Li. Sinauer Associates Inc., Sunderland, MA. 2000. Pp. 481. Price £27.95, paperback. ISBN 0 87893 266 6.

This book has an interesting history. In 1991 Wen-Hsiung Li and Dan Graur published the first edition of Fundamentals of Molecular Evolution. It was followed some six years later by Molecular Evolution, a book written by Wen-Hsiung Li; this was essentially a considerably extended and updated version of Fundamentals. And now we have the official second edition of Fundamentals, with a reversal of authorship. This is confusing, and ultimately not helpful to the book-buying public.

This is a very good book when viewed as an update to the first edition of Fundamentals, which itself was a good book. Many sections have been rewritten and updated, and a lot of new information has been added; as a consequence, the book has grown from 284 to 481 pages. However, when viewed next to Molecular Evolution, one of the books it will compete against, it is much less clear what the authors are trying to achieve; the books are of similar length and price, and have a similar structure. It would be understandable if Fundamentals was a shorter and simpler version of Molecular Evolution; but this is not the case, some topics are covered in more depth in Fundamentals. So in a sense this new edition is both a complete revision of Fundamentals, and a partial revision of Molecular Evolution.

The structure of the book is identical to that of the first edition, except that the glossary has been omitted, and two appendices have been added. The appendices deal with the temporal and spatial framework of evolution, and the basics of probability. The first of these is particularly useful. However, there is one big omission from the new Fundamentals, a chapter on intraspecific molecular variation. In an era when single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data and QTL mapping are about to revolutionize both human genetics and population biology, an understanding of the mechanisms by which genetic variation arises and is maintained, is vital. Furthermore, intra- and interspecific data are being used increasingly often in conservation genetics. But there is no mention of intraspecific variation except in the second chapter, which deals with some theoretical aspects of molecular evolution. If it were not for this omission I would warmly recommend this book, because it is well written and nicely presented. It is an ideal text for both undergraduate and graduate students.