Evolutionary physiology is the study of physiological evolution, which is to say, the manner in which the functional characteristics of individuals in a population of organisms have responded to selection across multiple generations during the history of the population.
It is a subdiscipline of both physiology and evolutionary biology. Practitioners in this field come from a variety of backgrounds, including physiology, evolutionary biology, ecology and genetics.
Accordingly, the range of phenotypes studied by evolutionary physiologists is broad, including but not limited to life history, behavior, whole-organism performance, functional morphology, biomechanics, anatomy, classical physiology, endocrinology, biochemistry, and molecular evolution. It is closely related to comparative physiology and environmental physiology, and its findings are a major concern of evolutionary medicine.
Read more about Evolutionary Physiology: History, Emergent Properties of Evolutionary Physiology, Areas of Research, Techniques, Funding and Societies, Some Journals That Frequently Publish Articles in Evolutionary Physiology
Famous quotes containing the words evolutionary and/or physiology:
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“A physician’s physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric’s divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)