Jan Sapp is an historian of biology at York University

York University

York University is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, Ontario's second-largest graduate school, and Canada's leading interdisciplinary university....

, Canada. His writings focus especially on evolutionary biology beyond the traditional neo-Darwinian framework, and emphasize the fundamental importance of symbiosis and horizontal gene transfer in heredity and evolution. He is also known for his writing on the coral reef

Coral reef

Coral reefs are underwater structures made from calcium carbonate secreted by corals. Coral reefs are colonies of tiny living animals found in marine waters that contain few nutrients. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, which in turn consist of polyps that cluster in groups. The polyps...

 crisis, focusing in detail on the outbreaks of crown of thorns starfish and coral bleaching

Coral bleaching

Coral bleaching is the loss of intracellular endosymbionts through either expulsion or loss of algal pigmentation.The corals that form the structure of the great reef ecosystems of tropical seas depend upon a symbiotic relationship with unicellular flagellate protozoa, called zooxanthellae, that...

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Jan Sapp was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He completed his BSc hons (Biology) at Dalhousie University in 1976 before earning his doctorat at the Institut d’histoire et de sociopolitique des sciences, at L'Université de Montréal in 1984. He subsequently held an appointment at the University of Melbourne for eight years, where he also served as chair of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science. He was Andrew Mellon Fellow at the Rockefeller University, 1991-92. He held the Canada Research Chair (tier 1) in the History of the Biological Sciences at l’Université du Québec à Montréal from 2001-2003 http://www.crsc.uqam.ca/fr/documents/publi_8-3.pdf before returning to York University where he has been a professor since 1992.

Books by Jan Sapp

1. The New Foundations of Evolution: On the Tree of Life, Oxford University Press, 2009.
2. ed., Microbial Phylogeny and Evolution: Concepts and Controversies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
3. Genesis: The Evolution of Biology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
4. What is Natural? Coral Reef Crisis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999 and 2003.
5. Evolution by Association. A History of Symbiosis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
6. Where The Truth Lies. Franz Moewus and the Origins of Molecular Biology. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
7. Beyond the Gene. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Recent Articles and Chapters

1. "Transcending Darwinism: Thinking Laterally on the Tree of Life," Hist. Phil. Life. Sci. 31 (2009):161-182
2. “Just in Time: Gene Theory and the Biology of the Cell Biology,” Molecular Reproduction and Development 76 (2009):1-9.
3. "The Structure of Microbial Evolutionary Theory," Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 38 (2007): 780–795
4. “The Prokaryote-Eukaryote Dichotomy: Meanings and Mythology,” Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, 69 (2005): 101-115.
5. “The Bacterium’s Place in Nature” in J. Sapp ed., Microbial Evolution Concepts and Controversies, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 pp. 1–52.
6. “The Dynamics of Symbiosis. An historical overview “Canadian Journal of Botany, 82 (2004):1-11.