Cover -- MONOGRAPHS IN POPULATION BIOLOGY -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Preface -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The Evidence for Niche Construction -- 3. A Theoretical Investigation of the Evolutionary Consequences of Niche Construction -- 4. General Qualitative Characteristics of Niche Construction -- 5. Niche Construction and Ecology -- 6. Human Niche Construction, Learning, and Cultural Processes -- 7. Testing Niche Construction 1: Empirical Methods and Predictions for Evolutionary Biology -- 8. Testing Niche Construction 2: Empirical Methods, Theory, and Predictions for Ecology -- 9. Testing Niche Construction 3: Empirical Methods and Predictions for the Human Sciences -- 10. Extended Evolutionary Theory -- Appendix 1: Model 1a -- Appendix 2: Model 1b -- Appendix 3: Model 2 -- Appendix 4: Models 3 and 4 -- Appendix 5: Model 5 -- Glossary of New Terms -- Bibliography (indexed) -- Index -- List of Figures -- 1.1. Consequences of niche construction and their implications for evolutionary theory, ecology, and the human sciences. -- 1.2. Giant nest built by a species of leaf-cutter ants Atta sexdens. -- 1.3. Standard evolutionary perspective and niche construction. -- 2.1. Impact of niche construction on the dynamic organism-environment relationship depicted schematically. -- 3.1. Model 1a. Niche construction can generate selection even when no external source of selection is acting. -- 3.2. Model 1a. External selection acting only at the E locus. -- 3.3. Model 1a. Niche construction increasing the amount R of a resource R in the environment as a consequence of the spread of allele E. -- 3.4. Model 1a. External selection favoring allele A. -- 3.5. Model 1a. External selection favoring heterozygotes. -- 3.6. Model 1a. External selection favoring heterozygotes, with low levels of recombination.

3.7. Haplodiploid model where diploid females are niche constructors (model 1b) also representing a sex-linked case: Parameter set 1. -- 3.8. Haplodiploid model where diploid females are niche constructors (model 1b): Parameter set 2. -- 3.9. Model 2. Positive niche construction, independent renewal, and no external selection. -- 3.10. Model 2. Positive niche construction, independent renewal, and heterozygote advantage. -- 4.1. Cartoon version of Maxwell's demon. -- 5.1. Elementary components and links in a model ecosystem. -- 5.2. The two kinds of elementary ecosystem links incorporated by standard evolutionary theory compared to the two kinds that are not. -- 5.3. The four kinds of elementary ecosystem links that are incorporated by extended evolutionary theory. -- 5.4. Web of connections in ecosystem where all links are evolutionary. -- 5.5. Relationships among a detrivorous isopod (Hemilepistus reamuri), soil erosion, and hydrology in an ecological system in the Negev desert. -- 6.1. Relationship between biological evolution and cultural change. -- 6.2. Magnification of box labeled "populations of diverse phenotypes" in figure 6.1. -- 6.3. Culturally modified niche construction may result in a modification of the environment and thus cultural or natural selection. -- 6.4. Dynamics, stable equilibria, and unstable equilibria for systems with no external selection. -- 6.5. Dynamics, stable equilibria, and unstable equilibria for systems with external selection at the A locus. -- 8.1. Examples of loops, chains, and webs formed from interacting biota and abiota in ecosystems. -- 8.2. Flow of two nutrients, nitrogen and phosphorus, in two contrasting forests. -- 8.3. Nitrogen cycles in figure 8.2 illustrated in terms of elementary ecosystem components.

9.1. Culturally transmitted niche construction may result in a modification of the environment causing two forms of feedback. -- 9.2. Two examples of culturally induced genetic signatures. -- List of Tables -- 2.1. Examples of the four categories of niche construction. -- 2.2. The universality of niche construction. -- 2.3. Anatomical and behavioral adaptations that may be evolutionary responses to prior perturbational niche construction. -- 2.4. Additional elaborations of niche-constructed resources that may be evolutionary responses to prior perturbational niche construction. -- 2.5. Physical or behavioral adaptations for regulating niche-constructed resources. -- 2.6. Courtship, mating, and parental behavior that may be an evolutionary response to prior perturbational niche construction. -- 2.7. Multispecies coevolutionary interactions mediated by niche construction. -- 3.1. Multiplicative viabilities with niche construction for diploid genotypes. -- 3.2. Viabilities with niche construction for male haplodiploid genotypes. -- 3.3. Expressions for the frequency R of the resource R under positive and negative niche construction, with independent renewal and depletion. -- 4.1. Comparison of the two selective processes in evolution, natural selection and niche construction. -- 5.1. The three universal ecosystem currencies. -- 5.2. Process-functional and population-community ecology compared in terms of the subset of ecosystem factors each handles. -- 6.1. Sources of and feedback from niche construction. -- 6.2. Fitnesses of individuals with cultural states E or e, and genotypes AA, Aa, and aa. -- 6.3. Cultural-transmission parameters.