Population of Organisms have

Lesson Change Over Time

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What I Need to Know

What is evolution? Evolution is a key unifying principle in biology. What are the
indications that show evolution has taken place in the past and is still happening
today? The evidence for evolution is compelling and extensive that has been gathered
supporting the theory of evolution. According to Charles Darwin on his book published
in 1895, the Origin of Species, to identifying patterns in nature that were consistent
with evolution.

Let us discover how the population of organisms changed over time through
natural selection. On the Origin of Species, published by Charles Darwin outlined in
considerable detail his arguments for evolution by natural selection. The theory of
evolution describes a mechanism for species to change over time.

A deer mouse Peromyscus maniculatus, an example of organism

that survive through evolution by natural selection.
 What Is It

There are two co-discoverers of natural selection, Alfred Wallace and Charles
Darwin. Darwin is the principal theorist of the notion whose most famous work on the
topic is On the Origin of Species in 1859. It is the process by which organisms change
over time as a result of changes in heritable physical or behavioral traits. This also
allows an organism to better adapt to its environment, help it survive and have more
offspring. The genetically inherited trait that increases the survival of that species
would persist through the process of evolution by natural selection. Adaptation is when
the genetic trait evolves this process that increases the probability that the species will
survive in a particular environment.

The process in nature by which organisms better adapted to their environment

tend to survive and reproduce more than those less adapted to their environment is
called natural selection. One of the examples is when the wild-frogs eaten by snakes
and birds. Gray wildfrogs blend well in dark wooded areas on tree bark and green
wildfrogs blend in well with green vegetation found in marshes and swamps. The green
wild-frog on the bark of a tree is easier for a predator to find compared to a green wild-
frog on a green leaf. So the green wild-frogs that go into habitats where they are not
camouflaged are more likely to be eaten by predators. Natural selection has favored
wildfrogs that live in habitats
in which they are more
camouflaged since wildfrogs
that have been eaten, do not
live to have any more baby
wildfrogs. This explains the
distribution of gray and green
wildfrogs. The wooded
habitat of the gray wild-frog is
larger and extends farther
north, while the green wild-
frog's swamp and marsh
habitat are concentrated in
the South. In the area in
which gray-green and gray
wild-frogs overlap, both
habitats occur but in different
places.

Source: https://www.petmd.com/reptile/nutrition/what-feed-your-frog

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 In general, natural selection is a process that results in some plants and
animals with certain characteristics being better adjusted than others to their natural
environment. Those animals and plants then have a higher chance to reproduce,
survive, and increase their population more than the ones that are less adapted to
their environment. The better-adapted animals and plants are therefore, able to pass
on their advantageous characteristics at their offspring through inheritance.
Adaptation is any characteristic that increases fitness as defined because it has the
ability to survive and reproduce.

What Is It

A characteristic that is influenced by genes and passed from parents to

offspring is called heritable. Heritable adaptive characteristics become more common
in a population in many generations; this process is called evolution by natural
selection. Adaptation within a population leads to evolution by natural selection.

For example, for the mouse that lived in the beach area with tan sand, none of the
mice had a change in the color of their fur; however, due to natural selection, tan fur
was more common for the pups than for the mother mouse. A heritable characteristic
that helps plants and animals to have more offspring which survive to reproduce will
tend to become more common in a population as a result of evolution by natural
selection.

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 Lesson Evolutionary Relationship

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What’s In

. In the previous lesson, you’ve learned about how organisms change over time.
This new lesson will guide you about the classification of organisms based on
evolutionary relationships. How do we classify organisms based on evolutionary
relationships in the present time? Scientists can build trees to show the evolutionary
relationships of species as a representation of classifying organisms based on
evolutionary relationships, just like you can build a family tree to show the relationships
of your ancestors and their descendants.

What I Need to Know

How do we know which organisms on a tree are most closely related to one
another? It's tempting to focus on the order of the branch tips on a tree in which lineage
goes to the right and which goes to the left, but in fact, this ordering is not meaningful
at all. Instead, the common ancestry is the key to understanding evolutionary
relationships. As shown in the figure below, common ancestry refers to the fact that
distinct descendent lineages have the same ancestral lineage in common with one
another.

Figure 1: descendent lineage that represents common ancestry

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 What’s New

This type of evidence for evolution is the presence of structures in organisms that share the
same basic form. For example, the bones in the appendages of a human, dog, dolphin, and
bat all share the same overall construction (Figure 1) resulting fromtheir origin in the
appendages of a common ancestor. Nevertheless, they have somewhat different forms and
functions they are called HOMOLOGOUS STRUCTURE. However, ANALOGOUS
STRUCTURE means unrelated animals have organs with similar functions, yet are very different in
structure and form.

Figure2: The similar

construction of these
appendages indicates
that these organisms
share a common
ancestor.

Activity 2: ANALOGOUS

Objectives: At the end of this activity, the students will be able to:

 define analogous structure; and

 examine the bird and butterfly wing and give its function.

Materials Needed: pencils and worksheet.Procedure:

1. Examine the birds' wing and butterfly wing as shown in Figure 2.

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 What Is It

Figure 4: Classification Hierarchy of Organisms

In scientific terms, the evolutionary history and relationship of an organism or

group of organisms are called phylogeny. Phylogeny describes the relationships of
an organism, such as from which species it is most closely related, and which
organisms it is thought to have evolved. It also provides information on shared
ancestry but not necessarily on how organisms are similar or different. Therefore,
phylogeny is the study of determining evolutionary relationships or patterns of the
descent of organisms. Through evolution or simply change over time, all of the species
of organisms that are alive today have descended from ancestral species. The
evolutionary relationships of ancestral species and their descendants can be
diagrammed using branching evolutionary trees. An evolutionary tree indicates which
ancestors gave rise to which descendants, just like making a family tree.

How do scientists construct phylogenetic trees? After the analogous and

homologous traits are sorted, scientists often organize the homologous traits using a
system called cladistics. Cladistics sorts organisms into clades, a group of organisms
that descended from a single ancestor.

Modern classification is based on evolutionary relationships called

Systematic/Cladistics. Cladistics is a classification based on common ancestry.
Phylogeny is the evolutionary history for a group of species, evidence from species,
the fossil record, and molecular data shown with branching tree diagrams.

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 What is a cladogram? A cladogram is a diagram that describes evolutionary
relationships among groups. It is based on phylogeny which is the study of
evolutionary relationships. Sometimes a phylogenetic tree is also called cladogram
though there are minor differences between the two. Biologists would group organisms
based on their physical appearance. This strategy is called evolutionary classification
cladistics through the advances in genetics and biochemistry. This form of analysis
which newer features that serve some kind of purpose and features organisms that
are considered innovation.

Figure 5: Cladogram that describes evolutionary relationship among group of species

The important factor that the organisms in the clade or monophyletic group
stem from a single point on the tree are through varying the size of a clade depending
on which branch point is being referenced. The term monophyletic breaks down into
“mono,” meaning one, and “phyletic,” meaning evolutionary relationship.

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