Natural Selection and Tropical Nature: Essays on Descriptive and Theoretical Biology.

English naturalist and biologist Alfred Russel Wallace was one of the two leading figures in the development of the theory of evolution through natural selection alongside Charles Darwin. Darwin and Wallace’s theories differed slightly. Darwin argued that competition between members of the same species led to adaptation, while Wallace asserted that environmental pressures led populations of various locations to diverge. In 1858, Darwin and Wallace published a joint publication: On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection, the content of which Darwin would develop into his magnum opus, On the Origin of Species, published the following year. The essays included in the present volume deal primarily with natural selection as applied to tropical vegetation and animal life.