Mechanism of Evolution

A coastal Namib dessert of South Western Africa

a land where fog is common but virtually no rain falls.

lives the beetle onymacris unguicularis: exhibits a certain behavior; a head

standing behavior where its head is tilted downward to obtain water to
survive.

Since there is no rain fall, whenever the wind blows the fog across, they face
the direction of the wind so they can collect water. In addition they do the head
standing behavior so that the water will run towards their mouth.

A member of a diverse group, more than 350,000 beetles species.

They have different sizes, shape and colors.

They share similar features such as having 3 pairs of legs, a hard outer
surface, and a 2 pair of wings.

Three Key Observation about Life

 The striking ways in which organisms are suited for life in their
environments.

 The many shared characteristics (unity) of life

 The rich diversity of life

Charles Darwin
He published the Origin of Species.

According to him, Descent with modification

" Earth's many species are descendants of ancestral species that were
different from the present-day species"

"as a change in the genetic composition of a population from generation to

generation"

Present day species were different from ancestral species because of the
change that happens in the genetic composition of a population from

Mechanism of Evolution 1
 generation to generation

How did he come up with this scientific explanation?

He formulate a theory when he traveled in HMS beagle in the 1830

a survey in the voyage expedition around the world where he was able to
observe many organisms in different places.

He was born in Shrewsbury, Western England

He had a passion and interest in nature

He was fishing, hunting and collecting insects if he was not reading a book

His father thought that it was his interest but there would be no future for
him if he became a naturalist. So he sent him to a medical school in
Edinburgh

Charles found medicine to be boring and horrifying because of surgery

because during his time there was no anesthesia.

He quit medical school and enrolled to Cambridge University

Mostly, the students were a Clergymen. So his intention is to be a

Clergymen. Most of the scholars of science belong to the clergy.

He met the reverend John Henslow - a botany professor

After Darwin graduated, Henslow recommended him to the captain of HMS

Beagle, Captain Robert Fritzroy - The goal is to survey and have a long
voyage around the word.

Darwin traveled on England by the Beagle in December 1831.

He spent most of his time on shore. He observed and collect thousand of

plants and animals.

He had an interest in the geographic distribution of species.

It was further stimulated when they stopped at Galapagos Island - a group

of volcanic islands located near the equator. it is about 900 km West of
South America.

He was fascinated by the unusual organisms in Galapagos island

The birds he collected including the Finches and Mocking birds

Even though they are similar to each other. for him it was different species.

Mechanism of Evolution 2
 The animals of the galapagos resembled species living in the south
american mainland. At the same time, there are species unique in the other
places.

He hypothesized, The Galapagos had been colonized by the organisms

that had strained from South America and were able to diversified giving
new species.

During their voyage, he began to observe many examples of adaptation

He reasses his observation and he was able to perceived the adaptation to

the environment in the origin of new species are closely related processes.

Biologies included that this is indeed happened to the diverse group of

galapagos finches.

Galapagos Finches
Their differences in beaks and behaviors are adapted to the specific food
available on their home islands

 Cactus - eater

Long and sharp beaks helps it tear and eat cactus flowers and pulp.

2. Insect - eater

the green warbler finch uses its narrow, pointed beak to grab insects.

3. Seed-eater

the large ground finch has a large beak adapted fro cracking seeds that fall
from plants to the ground.

He realized that explaining such adaptation was essential to understand

evolution.

His explanation of how adaptation arise centered on what he called natural

selection.

The Origin of Species

Darwin developed two main ideas:

 Descent with modification explains life's unity and diversity.

Mechanism of Evolution 3
  Natural selection is a cause of adaptive evolution.

He did not mention the word "evolution" although in the final book, there is
a word "evolve"

He attributed the unity of life on the decent of all the organisms from
ancestor that lived in the remote past and he also thought that as the
descendants of that ancestor organism that lived in various habitats over
millions of years they accumulated diverse modification or adaptation that
feed them to a specific ways of life.

Natural Selection
a process in which individuals that have certain inherited traits tend to survive
and reproduce at higher rates than other individuals because of those traits.

over time, it can increase the match between organisms and their environment
Examples:

A flower mantid in Malaysia

A leaf mantid in Borneo

Camouflage is one example of evolutionary adaptation

Related species of insects called Mantids have diverse shape and colors.

Artificial Selection
Darwin noted that humans have modified other species by selecting and
breeding individuals with desired traits, a process called artificial selection.

He proposed the mechanism of natural selection to explain the observable

patterns of evolution. And aside from natural selection, he also discuss
examples of selective breeding of domesticated plants and animals that
brought the different modification of species over time

He also said that humans do the artificial selection to modify other species
of individuals having selected or desired traits.

Many different varieties were created by humans through selective

breeding of these genetically varied wild mustard plants.

The organisms with desired characteristics were bred with each other until
its descendants became distinctly different from its ancestor.

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 Observation #1
Members of a population often very greatly in their traits.

There is a variation in a population.

Individuals in this population of Asian lady bird beetles vary on color and spot
pattern.

Observation #2
Traits are inherited from parents to offspring

Observation #3
All species can produce more offspring than their environment can support
and many of these offspring fail to survive and reproduce.

If billions of spores mature, then they would carpet the surrounding land
surface.

He saw an important connection between natural selection and the capacity of

organisms to over reproduce was characteristics of all species.

Only a tiny fraction complete their development and live offspring of their
own.

Not all can mature and survive in turn to reproduce and have offspring.

They were either eaten, starve, diseased, unmated or unable to tolerate the
physical condition of the environment such as salinity of temperature.

Inference #1
Individuals whose inherited traits give them a higher probability of surviving
and reproducing in a given environment tend to leave more offspring than other
individuals.

Other individuals that can inherits traits and favorable to survive have a
higher chance to survive and reproduce. Since they have that traits, they can
produce more offspring with carrying those favorable traits.

It can influence not only its own performance but also how well its offspring
cope with environmental changes.

For example, The organisms have traits that can escape a predator or can
tolerate a physical condition have a chance to survive and increase its

Mechanism of Evolution 5
 offspring. It can be pass on and have a highly chance on having a grater
frequency in the next generation.

Inference #2
This unequal ability of individual to survive and reproduce will lead to the
accumulation of favorable traits in the population over generation.

Thus overtime, natural selection resulting from factors such as

predators

lack of food

environmental condition

can lead to an increase in the proportion of favorable traits in a population

Charles Darwin was able to analyze his married life because he was
married to his first cousin, Emma

They had 10 children, 3 of them died because of infectious disease and 3

of the 7 children were unable to have children on their own.

He saw the effect of breeding. Having a consanguineous pair has been

associated with still birth, low birth weight, abortion, infant and child
mortality, congenital birth defects and so on.

If an environment changes, or if individuals move to a new environment, natural

selection may result in adaptation to these new conditions, sometimes giving
rise to new species.

Natural selection can increase and decrease only those heritable traits that
different among individuals in the population.

If a trait is heritable but all individuals in the population are genetically

identical for that trait, evolution by natural selection cannot occur. Also,
environmental factors may vary from place to place over time. Traits that is
favorable in one place or time may be useless in another places or time

Natural selection is always operating but which traits are favored depends
on the context in which a species lives and mates.

Evolution of Species.

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 In the Origin of Species, Darwin provided abundant evidence that life on
Earth has evolved over time, and he proposed natural selection as the
primary mechanism for that change.

Genetic variation in populations contribute to evolution.

Two processes, mutation and sexual reproduction, produce the variation

in gene pools that contributes to differences among individuals.

Sources of Genetic Variation

It can refer to differences between individuals or population.

Mutation
changes in the nucleotide sequence of DNA

cause new genes and alleles to arise

Only mutations in cells that produce gametes can be passed to offspring

Sexual Reproduction
can shuffle existing alleles into new combinations

In organisms that reproduces sexually, most of the genetic variations in a

population results from the combination of alleles that each individuals receive
from its parent
Although individuals in a population must differ genetically for evolution to
occur, the presence of genetic variation does not guarantee that a population
will evolve

Hardy-Weinberg equation tests whether a sexually reproducing population

is evolving.

If a population is in a state called Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, the

frequencies of alleles, or gene versions, and genotypes, or sets of alleles, in
that population will stay the same over generations.

What causes population to evolve?

In order for a population to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, or a non-
evolving state, it must meet five major assumptions:

 No mutation

Mechanism of Evolution 7
  Random mating

 No gene flow

 Very large population size

 No natural selection

Mechanism of Evolution
Mutation
a random change in the DNA sequence within a gene or chromosome of a
living organism. They can also be described as copying errors within the DNA.

The impact of the brand new mutation on alleles frequencies from one
generation to the next is usually not large. However, if the natural selection
act on the results of a mutation, it can be powerful mechanism of evolution.

However, for a mutation to be passed down to offspring and help bring

about evolution, it has to affect DNA in the gametes, the egg cell or sperm
cells.

Organisms that passed on their traits to their offspring via the hereditary
process. Random recombination and mutation result in offspring with random
mixes of traits which in turn mix this randomly and pass them on to their
offspring. This allows genetic diversity in the species.

Having a good mutation will help the organism to survive and have a better
chance of survival.

Gene Flow
aka Migration

involves the movement of genes into or out of a population, due to either

the movement of individual organism or their gametes (genetic material they
carry)

Evolution can also occur as a result of genes being transferred from one
population to another.

Organisms and gametes that enter the population may carry alleles. That
alleles can be different proportion from those already in the population.

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 Gene flow can also be occur without migration.

Gene flow includes lots of different kinds of events, such as pollen being
blown to a new destination or people moving to new cities or countries. If
gene versions are carried to a population where those gene versions
previously did not exist, gene flow can be a very important source of genetic
variation.

Genetic Drift
a change in allele frequencies in a population from generation to generation
that occurs due to chance of events.

Its effect is strongest in a small population.

a Bottleneck effect

It is an extreme example of genetic drift that happens when the size of a

population is severely reduced.

The cause of reduction in the size population is natural disaster.

The genetic composition of the random survivors is now the genetic

composition of the entire composition.

Founder effect

another extreme example of drift, one that occurs when a small group of
individuals breaks off from a larger population to establish a colony.

The founder effect might occur also when a few members of a population
are blown by a storm to a new island.

genetic drift in which chance events outer the allele frequencies will occur
in such a case if the storm transfer some individuals. It will be the source of
population since it carries a certain traits or alleles.

Natural Selection
occurs when one allele (or combination of alleles of different genes) makes
an organism more or less fit, that is, able to survive and reproduce in a given
environment.

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 Most famous mechanism of evolution

If an allele reduces fitness, its frequency will tend to drop from one
generation to the next.

Fitness - measure of how well an organism will survive and reproduce.

Example: Organism Barnacle, If it is more efficient at collecting foods than

its neighbors, then it has a greater tendency to store energy and will be able
to produce larger number of eggs.

Example Moth: It may have more offspring than other moth in the same
population because its body color are more effective in concealing itself from
predators, thus improving its chance of survival long enough to produce
more offspring.

The contribution an individual makes to a gene pool of the next generation

relative to the contribution of other individuals.

Organisms that has certain traits will lead to a greater fitness.

This example illustrates how in a given environment, certain traits can lead to a
greater relative fitness.

Environmental influences have an effect on all living creatures and this are
known as selection factors. This selection factors can include predators,
parasites, animals of the same species, toxins, changes in habitat and climate.

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