This is a list of important publications in biology, organized by field.
Some reasons why a particular publication might be regarded as important:
Topic creator – A publication that created a new topic
Breakthrough – A publication that changed scientific knowledge significantly
Introduction – A publication that is a good introduction or survey of a topic
Influence – A publication which has significantly influenced the world
Latest and greatest – The current most advanced result in a topic Anatomy
Description: Henry Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body, commonly known as Gray's Anatomy, is an anatomy textbook widely regarded as a classic work on human anatomy. The book was first published under the title Gray's Anatomy: Descriptive and Surgical in Great Britain in 1858, and the following year in the United States. The book's British author died after the publication of the 1860 second edition, at the age of 34, but his much-praised book was continued by others and on November 24, 2004, the 39th British edition was released.
Importance: Influence, introduction.
Henry Gray
Henry Gray, Henry Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body, 1858.
Online version 1918, list of topics. Gray's Anatomy
Botany
Description : a two-volume work, going through many editions (ever expanding), listing all plants then known, made accessible by an ordering in (artificial) classes and orders, and giving every listed species a two-part name (Binomial nomenclature or Binary name). With this book anybody, by counting the male and female parts present in a flower, could get to a listing of the genera the plant in question belongs to. This is the prime staring point of botanical nomenclature. It was also the starting point of a great upsurge in the popularity of Science. Arguably the most important publication in systematic biology ever. Without Linnaeus there might have been no Darwin. Importance : Topic creator, Breakthrough, Influence
Carolus Linnaeus, 1753
online at gallica Species Plantarum
Cell biology
Description: A comprehensive introduction to cell and molecular biology, at both undergraduate and beginning graduate levels. There is a free Online version. Importance: This has long been the standard introduction to cell biology.
Alberts, Bruce; Johnson, Alexander; Lewis, Julian; Raff, Martin; Roberts, Keith; Walter, Peter
New York, Garland Publishing, 2002
ISBN 0815332181 Molecular Biology of the Cell
Genomic Regulatory Systems: Development and Evolution
Biological Physics of the Developing Embryo (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2005).
Description The first book to present an account of the full scope of embryonic development of vertebrate and invertebrate organisms on the basis of modern condensed matter physics and dynamical systems theory. Includes a chapter on the evolution of developmental mechanisms.
G. Forgacs and S. A. Newman Systems Developmental Biology
In silico multicellular systems biology and minimal genomes, Drug Discovery Today. 2003 December 15;8(24):1121-7.
Description An alternative approach to dynamical systems theory. Describes a new paradigm for understanding genomes in the development of organisms.
E. Werner Multicellular Systems Biology
Ecology
Description: This book turned descriptive faunistic/floristic biogeography in a new discipline, ecology. Based on his botanical investigations from Tropics to tundra, Warmings aim was to explain how similar environmental challenges (drought, flooding, cold, salt, herbivory etc.) was solved by plants in similar ways everywhere in the World, despite the different decent of species on different continents.
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough.
Eugenius Warming
Eug Warming. Plantesamfund- Grundtræk af den økologiske Plantegeografi (in Danish). P.G. Philipsens Forlag, Copenhagen. 335 pp. English edition Oecology of Plants: An Introduction to the Study of Plant Communities (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1909). Biotic community
Description: In this book Gause formulated his Competitive exclusion principle, through experiments involving Paramecium. The principle holds that no two species can co-exist for long if they have to compete for highly similar resources. This outcome has two preconditions: 1) panmixis of individuals of competing species, 2) the environment is homogeneous in time and space. These conditions may be met with by aquatic microorganisms grown under laboratory conditions. However, in most real-world biotic communities, both conditions are likely to be violated from moderately to strongly. Due to its simplicity and intuitivness, Gause's Competitive exclusion principle has a great impact on subsequent ecological thinking.
Importance: Topic creator.
Description: Hutchinson's 1959 paper went a long way to understanding community assembly in ecosystems, in addition to solving an apparent violation of competitive exclusion. His studies of Corixidae lead to the discovery of 1:1.3 Hutchinson ratio that is ubiquitous in all community systems involving the co-existence of two niche-similar predatorial species. The size ratio difference is what permits their co-existence despite the degree of niche-overlap, and formed the basis for the limiting similarity theory - one of the most important contributions to Community Ecology to date.
Importance: Topic creator.
Georgii Frantsevich Gause
G. F. Gause. The struggle for existence, 1936. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.
G. Evelyn Hutchinson
Hutchinson, G. E. (1959). "Homage to Santa Rosalia or why are there so many kinds of animals?" American Naturalist, 93, 145-159. Competitive exclusion
Description: This is the paper in which the concept of the Ecological niche was first developed. Although Joseph Grinnell viewed the species habitat as being analogous to its niche, which is not how niches are perceived today, it still represented a significant contribution as it got his contemporary Ecologists thinking in such a way that lay the foundations for modern day Ecology.
Importance: Topic creator, Impact.
Description: In Hutchinson's 1957 address, for the first time in ecology, a strongly quantitative method for understanding the relationship between a species, its ecosystem and the environment at large is developed. Even if today Hutchinson's niche concept (or even the relevance of niches to ecology in general) is disputed, he fundamentally changed the orientation of ecology away from a qualitative science towards a strongly quantitative one. Hutchinson is thusly considered by many as the father of modern ecology.
Importance: Breakthrough.
Joseph Grinnell
Grinnell, J. (1917). "The Niche relationship of the California Thrasher", Auk, 34, 427-433.
G. Evelyn Hutchinson
Hutchinson, G. E. (1957). "Concluding remarks, Cold Spring Harbor Symposium." Quant. Biol, 22, 415-427. Ecological niche
Description: Harper's monograph on the population biology of plants was groundbreaking in turning the focus of (plant) ecologists to empirically observable demographic processes with direct relevance to selection and Darwinian fitness, such as natality, mortality and reproductive value.
John L. Harper
Harper, J.L. 1977. The Population Biology of Plants. Academic Press, London. Demography
Description: This monograph was seminal in many ways, but it also contained the formulation of r/K selection theory, which posits that two contrasted directions in life-history selection will occur in crowded and un-crowded communities, respectively: K- or interaction selection in the former and r- or exploitation selection in the latter.
Importance: Topic creator.
Grime, P. 1979. Plant Strategies and Vegetation Processes. Wiley and Sons, Chichester. (2nd edn 2001) Description: Grime added a third fundamental strategy, namely selection for survival in stressfull environments. Grime's RCS theory (for Competition, Stress, Ruderal) addresses life-history evolution and of community assembly. It was presented in the context of plants, but has been widely accepted i animal ecology as well.
Importance: Topic creator, breakthrough.
Robert MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson
MacArthur,R.H. & Wilson,E.O. (1967) The theory of island biogeography. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ.
J. Philip Grime
Grime, J.P. (1974) Vegetation classification by reference to strategies. Nature, 250, 26-31. Ecological strategies
Entomology
Description: This book tries to cover the whole extent of the history of the insects in time and space. Importance: By a leader in the paleotology of insects.
Rasnitsyn, A.P.
Quicke, D.L.J.
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002 History of Insects
Description: Fabre investigated insects, both at the anatomical level and the behavioral level.
Jean-Henri Fabre
His works Souvenirs entomologiques
Evolutionary biology
Description: Until the publication of this encyclopedia the scientific community thought that all animals were created together by God before about 6,000 years. Not only did this 44 volume encyclopedia contained all descriptive biological knowledge of its time, it offered a new theory. 100 years before Darwin, Buffon claimed that man and ape might have a common ancestor. His work also had significant impact on ecology.
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Impact
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
1749-1788 Histoire Naturelle
Description: In September 1838 Charles Darwin conceived his theory of natural selection as the cause of evolution, then as well as developing his career as a naturalist worked privately on finding evidence and answering possible objections, circulating essays written in 1842 and 1844 to his friends. Wallace, who was corresponding with Darwin from Borneo, arrived independently at the same theory. He wrote his paper On The Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type in February 1858 and sent it to Darwin, who received it on 18 June 1858 and passed it to Lyell and Hooker. They arranged for a joint publication of Wallace's paper and an extract from Darwin's 1844 essay; this was read to the Linnean Society of London on 1 July 1858, and printed in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. Zoology 3: 46-50. It had little impact at the time, but spurred Darwin to write an "abstract" of the "big book" Natural Selection he was then working on; this condensed version was published in November 1859 as On the Origin of Species.
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace
1858
On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection
- Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London. Zoology 3: 46-50.
On The Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type
On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection
Description: The Origin of Species is one of the hallmark works of biology. In this shortened abstract of his intended "big book" on Natural Selection, Darwin details his theory that organisms gradually evolve through a process of natural selection, and this process leads to the formation of new species. It was first published on November 24, 1859 and the initial print run was oversubscribed by booksellers at Murray's Autumn sale the day before. Darwin presents a theory of natural selection that is in most aspects identical to the theories now accepted by scientists. He carefully argues out this theory by presenting accumulated scientific evidence from his voyage on the Beagle in the 1830s, and from his continuing studies up to the date of publication. His studies continued, with the book being revised accordingly, the most extensive revisions being to the 6th and final edition.
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Impact
Charles Darwin
On the Origin of Species, John Murray, London, 1859.
Freeman, R. B. (1977), "On the Origin of Species", The Works of Charles Darwin: An Annotated Bibliographical Handlist (Second ed.), Wm Dawson & Sons Ltd, <http://darwin-online.org.uk/EditorialIntroductions/Freeman_OntheOriginofSpecies.html> Retrieved on 2007-01-14
Origin of Species, 6th Edition (text) The Origin of Species
Description: This book discusses Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection
Importance: Impact--this has been the basis for population genetics.
Ronald Fisher
The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, Oxford University Press; 1930, New Ed edition (May 1, 2000) ISBN 0-19-850440-3. The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection
Evolutionary developmental biology
Description: In his book that examines the cell lineage as a unit of selection, Leo Buss addresses the evolutionary conflict between the individuality of cells that make up a metazoan and the metazoan individual itself. In elaborating this idea he presents numerous hypotheses regarding the evolution of animal development and life cycles. He wraps it up by addressing hierarchical organization in biology. It is one of the first texts addressing the idea of the individual in biology, integrating multilevel selection theory (from the macroevolutionists and gene selectionists) with developmental and cell biology. Though heavy on the theory and rather light on the evidence, for anyone interested in evo-devo or macroevolution this should be an essential read.
Importance: Topic creator, influence
Leo W. Buss
1987, The Evolution of Individuality, Princeton University Press. The Evolution of Individuality
Description: Critically revisits Haeckel's idea that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." Gould presents heterochrony as a concept that allows us to describe the majority of developmental processes in evolution. This book played a significant role at the time by bringing the evolutionary biology community back to examine developmental biology, ignored for many years. Importance: Influence
Stephen Jay Gould
1977, Ontogeny and Phylogeny, Harvard University Press Ontogeny and Phylogeny
Genetics
Description: Experiments on Plant Hybridization was the result after years spent studying genetic traits in pea plants. In his paper, Mendel compared seven discrete traits. Through experimentation, Mendel discovered that one inheritable trait would invariably be dominant to its recessive alternative. This model, later known as Mendelian inheritance or Mendelian genetics, provided an alternative to blending inheritance, which was the prevailing theory at the time.
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Impact
Gregor Mendel
Proceedings of the Natural History Society, 1866.
Online version Experiments on Plant Hybridization
Microbiology
Roger Y. Stanier, Michael Doudoroff; Edward A Adelberg
First ed.,Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1957 OCLC 371122. (2nd ed, 1963, 3rd. ed., 1970, 4th ed. 1976)
Importance Classic 20th century textbook, The Microbial World
Molecular biology
Description: Discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule.
Importance: Topic creator, Breakthrough, Impact
Francis Crick, James D. Watson
Nature (journal)171, 737-738 (1953)
Online version (Original text) Molecular structure of Nucleic Acids
Description: The basis of the DNA sequencing technique. (Sanger won his second Nobel prize on the basis of this discovery) Importance: Breakthrough, Impact
Frederick Sanger, S. Nicklen, and A. R. Coulson
PNAS, vol. 74, no. 12, p. 5463-5467 (1977)
(Original text) DNA Sequencing with Chain-Terminating Inhibitors
Description: The manual (to which is often referred simply as the Maniatis) is universally recognized as the best manual for molecular biology techniques. The theory behind the techniques is also discussed in details. It is cited by thousands of publications. Importance: Impact
original edition, 1982: E.F.Fritsch, Joe Sambrook, Tom Maniatis
second edition, 1989: Joe Sambrook, E.F.Fritsch, Tom Maniatis
third edition, 2001: David W. Russell, Joe Sambrook
manual published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
Official website of the book Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual
Origin of life
Description: A very readable yet complete introduction to the early evolution of life.
Importance: Introduction.
Andrew H. Knoll
2003, Princeton University Press. Life on a Young Planet: The First Three Billion Years of Evolution on Earth
Phylogenetics
Description: This book popularized the techniques of cladistics in the English-speaking world. It is based on work published in German starting 1950. Willi Hennig is considered the founder of cladistics, which he developed while working as an entomologist in East Germany.
Importance: The origin of the subject; lasting influence
Willi Hennig
University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1966. Phylogenetic Systematics
Description: An excellent technical manual to guide any biologist wishing to construct a phylogenetic hypothesis.
Importance: Possibly the most complete and authoritative work published on phylogenetics to date.
Joseph Felsenstein
Sinauer Associates, 2004. Inferring Phylogenies
Description: Introduction to the mathematical theory behind phylogenetic methods, both for biologists and for mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists--this is an emerging area of discrete mathematics.
Importance: A useful monograph on the mathematics of phylogenetic methods.
Charles Semple and Mike Steel
Oxford Lecture Series in Mathematics and Its Applications, 2003
ISBN 0198509421 Phylogenetics
Psychobiology
Description: Wilson introduced the term sociobiology as an attempt to explain the evolutionary mechanics behind social behaviors such as altruism, aggression, and nurturance. Wilson's book sparked one of the great scientific controversies in biology of the 20th century.
Importance:
Wilson, E. O
Sociobiology: The new synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1975. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis
Systems biology
Description: A brief justification for systems biology.
Importance:
Marc W. Kirschner
Cell, Vol. 121, 503 – 504, May 20, 2005 The Meaning of Systems Biology
Taxonomy
Description: The starting point of zoological nomenclature, and the binomen. Follows the similar starting point for plants in 1753.
Importance: Impact
Carolus Linnaeus
First published: 10th edition 1758 Systema Naturae
Zoology
Description: A work in which Aristotle describes the anatomy of organisms, with a particular emphasis on morphology. Consists of ten books of facts and descriptions. Many claim the book seems unscientific by today's standards.
Importance: Topic creator, Impact
Aristotle
350 BC
The history of animals Naturalis Historia
Description: In these letters, White published his observations on birds near his house.
Importance: Impact
Gilbert White
1813
The letters
