EVOLUTION and ITS

MECHANISMS
Objectives
■describe different evolutionary theories and explain
what Darwin meant by “descent with modification”;
■explain the biological origin of life and how life
evolved into the wide variety of that it is today;
■discuss how genetic variation occurs within a
population;
■define and discuss the limitations of the four species
concepts;
■provide an example of evidence for the different
theories of evolution.
Origins of Darwinian
Evolutionary Theory
■Pre-Darwinian Evolutionary Ideas
◆ Xenophanes, Empedocles & Aristotle
⧫ Developed an early idea of
evolutionary change
⧫ Recognized fossils as evidence for
former life that they believed had been
destroyed by catastrophe--
catastrophism
Origins of Darwinian
Evolutionary Theory
■Pre-Darwinian Evolutionary Ideas
◆ George Louis Buffon (1707-1788)
⧫ French naturalist
⧫ stressed the influence of environment
on the modifications of animal form
⧫ extended the age of the Earth to 70 000
years
Origins of Darwinian
Evolutionary Theory
■Lamarckism: The First Scientific
Explanation of Evolution
◆ Jean Baptiste de Lamarck (1744-1829)
⧫ first explained evolution
⧫ fossils were remains of extinct animals
⧫ proposed Inheritance of Acquired
Characteristics
 Theory of Inheritance of
Acquired Characteristics
●organisms acquire
adaptations as
they strive to meet
the demands of
their environments
●these adaptations
are passed to their
offspring by
heredity
 Theory of Use and Disuse
●the structure that an
organism uses most will
undergo hypertrophy
and will become more
developed.
●the structures that are
not used will undergo
atrophy and begin to
degrade from lack of
use.
Charles Lyell and
Uniformitarianism
●Charles Lyell
(1797-1875)
○established the
principle of
uniformitarianis
m in his
Principles of
Geology (1830-
1833)
Charles Lyell and
Uniformitarianism
Uniformitarianism
1.the laws of physics and chemistry have not
changed throughout the history of the earth
2.past geological events occurred by natural
processes similar to those observed today
Charles Darwin
■The Origin of Species
in 1859
■Descent with
modification by
natural selection
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
■Evolution, or change over time, is the
process by which modern organisms have
descended from ancient organisms.

■A scientific theory is a well-supported

testable explanation of phenomena that
have occurred in the natural world.
Voyage of the Beagle
Voyage of Beagle
■Dates: February 12th, 1831
■Captain: Charles Darwin
■Ship: H.M.S. Beagle
■Destination: Voyage around the world.
■Findings: evidence to propose a
revolutionary hypothesis about how life
changes over time
 Patterns of Diversity

■Darwin visited Argentina and Australia which had

similar grassland ecosystems.

◆ those grasslands were inhabited by very different

animals.

◆ neither Argentina nor Australia was home to the sorts

of animals that lived in European grasslands.
 Patterns of Diversity

■Darwin posed challenging questions.

◆ Why were there no rabbits in Australia, despite the
presence of habitats that seemed perfect for them?

◆ Why were there no kangaroos in England?

 Living Organisms and Fossils

■Darwin collected the preserved remains of

ancient organisms, called fossils.

■Some of those fossils resembled organisms that

were still alive today.
 Living Organisms and Fossils

■ Others looked completely unlike any creature he had

ever seen.

■As Darwin studied fossils, new questions arose.

◆ Why had so many of these species disappeared?

◆ How were they related to living species?

Fossils
Geological Time
●before the earth’s age was known--
geologists divided its history into a table of
succeeding events based on the ordered
layers of sedimentary rock
●time is divided into eons, eras, periods,
and epochs.
The Galapagos Island
■The smallest, lowest islands were hot,
dry, and nearly barren-Hood Island-sparse
vegetation

■The higher islands had greater rainfall

and a different assortment of plants and
animals-Isabela- Island had rich
vegetation.
The Galapagos Island

■Darwin was fascinated in particular by the land

tortoises and marine iguanas in the Galápagos.

■Giant tortoises varied in predictable ways from

one island to another.

■The shape of a tortoise's shell could be used to

identify which island a particular tortoise
inhabited.
Animals found in the Galapagos
■Land Tortoises

■Darwin Finches

■Blue-Footed Booby

■Marine Iguanas
Animals
The Journey Home
■Darwin Observed that characteristics
of many plants and animals vary
greatly among the islands

■Hypothesis: Separate species may

have arose from an original ancestor
Ideas that shaped Darwin’s
Thinking
■James Hutton:
■1795 Theory of
Geological change
◆ Forces change
earth’s surface
shape
◆ Changes are slow
◆ Earth much older
than thousands of
years
Ideas that Shaped Darwin’s
Thinking
■Charles Lyell
■ Book: Principles of
Geography
■Geographical features
can be built up or torn
down
■Darwin thought if
earth changed over
time, what about life?
Lamarck
Population Growth
■Thomas Malthus-
19th century English
economist
■If population grew
(more Babies born
than die)
◆ Insufficient living
space
◆ Food runs out
◆ Darwin applied this
theory to animals
Publication of Orgin of Species
■Russel Wallace wrote
an essay summarizing
evolutionary change
from his field work in
Malaysia

■Gave Darwin the drive

to publish his findings
Artificial selection, natural
selection, adaptation
Natural Selection & Artificial
Selection
■Natural variation--differences among
individuals of a species

■Artificial selection- nature provides the

variation among different organisms, and
humans select those variations they find
useful.
Evolution by Natural Selection
■The Struggle for Existence-members of
each species have to compete for food,
shelter, other life necessities

■Survival of the Fittest-Some individuals

better suited for the environment
Natural Selection
■Over time, natural
selection results in
changes in inherited
characteristics of a
population. These
changes increase a
species fitness in its
environment
Descent
■ Descent with Modification-Each living organism has
descended, with changes from other species over time
■ Common Descent- were derived from common ancestors
Evidence of Evolution
■The Fossil Record

■Geographic Distribution of Living

Things

■Homologous Body Structures

■Similarities in Early Development

Evidence for Evolution
■The Fossil Record-
Layer show change
■Geographic
Distribution of Living
Things
■Homologous Body
Structures
■Similarities in Early
Development
Evidence of Evolution
■The Fossil Record
■Geographic
Distribution of
Living Things-similar
environments have
similar types of
organisms
■Homologous Body
Structures
■Similarities in Early
Development
Homologous Structures
■Homologous Structures-structures that
have different mature forms in different
organisms, but develop from the same
embryonic tissue
Evidence for Evolution
■Vestigial organs-organs that serve
no useful function in an organism
■i.e.) appendix, miniature legs, arms
Similarities in Early
Development
Summary of Darwin’s Theory
■Individuals in nature differ from one
another

■Organisms in nature produce more

offspring than can survive, and many of
those who do not survive do not reproduce.
Summary of Darwin’s Theory
■Because more organisms are produced than
can survive, each species must struggle for
resources

■Each organism is unique, each has

advantages and disadvantages in the
struggle for existence
Summary (cont.)
■Individuals best suited for the environment
survive and reproduce most successful

■Species change over time

Summary (cont.)

■Species alive today descended with modification

from species that lived in the past

■All organisms on earth are united into a single

family tree of life by common descent
Convergent evolution

■is the evolution of alike features in

indistinctly interrelated groups.
■These traits arise when groups individually
adjust to the same environments in
analogous ways and it does not offer
evidence about ancestry.
Ontogeny, Phylogeny, &
Recapitulation
●Ontogeny
○the history of the development of an
organism through its entire life
○comparative studies of ontogeny show
how the evolutionary alteration of
developmental timing generates new
characteristics → generation of
evolutionary divergence among lineages
Ontogeny, Phylogeny, &
Recapitulation
●Ernst Haeckel
○contemporary of Darwin
○proposed that each successive stage in
the development of an individual
represented one of the adult forms that
appeared in its evolutionary history
○human embryo with gill depressions in
the neck corresponded for example , to
the adult appearance of a fishlike
ancestor
 Ontogeny, Phylogeny, &
Recapitulation
●Ernst Haeckel
Recapitulation or the Biogenetic Law:
Ontogeny (individual development)
recapitulates (repeats) phylogeny
(evolutionary descent).
Basis: Flawed premise that evolutionary change occurs
by successively adding new features onto the end of an
unaltered ancestral ontogeny while condensing the
ancestral ontogeny into earlier developmental stages.
This notion was based on Lamarck’s concept of the
inheritance of acquired characteristics
Ontogeny, Phylogeny, &
Recapitulation
K. E von Baer
●Early developmental features were more
widely shared among different animal
groups than later ones.
●The adults of animals with relatively short
and simple ontogenies often resemble pre-
adult stages of other animals whose
ontogeny is more elaborate, but embryos
of descendants do not necessarily
resemble the adults of their ancestors.
Ontogeny, Phylogeny, &
Recapitulation
Heterochrony
●features of an ancestral ontogeny can be
shifter to either earlier or later stages in
descendant ontogenies.
●evolutionary change in timing of
development
 Paedomorphosis

●retention of
ancestral
juvenile
characters by
descendant
adults
Developmental modularity and
evolvability
●Heterotopy
○used to describe a change in the
physical location of a developmental
process in an organism’s body.
Developmental modularity and
evolvability
●Heterotopy
Geckos as a group
have topads and
adhesive structures
on the ventral side
of the toes that
permit climbing
and clinging to
smooth surfaces.
Developmental modularity and
evolvability
●Heterotopy
Toepads consist of
modified scales
containing long
protrusions, called
setae, which can be
molded to the
surface of a
substrate.
 Developmental Modularity and
Evolvability
●Modularity
○evident in the homeotic mutations of the
fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster
 Developmental Modularity and
Evolvability
●Modularity
○evident in the homeotic mutations of the
fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster
 Developmental Modularity and
Evolvability
●Modularity
○evident in the homeotic mutations of the
fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster
Multiplication of Species
 Species
Important criteria in recognizing species:
1. descent of all members from a common
ancestral population forming a lineage of
of ancestor-descendant populations
2. reproductive compatibility (ability to
interbreed) within and reproductive
incompatibility between species for
sexually reproducing animals
3. maintenance within species of genotypic
and phenotypic cohesion (lack of abrupt
differences among populations in allelic
frequencies and organismal characteristics)
 Speciation

species formation
 Reproductive barriers

biological features that prevent

different species from interbreeding
Allopatric Speciation
●Allopatric- “in another land”
●population of species that occupy separate
geographical areas
●because of their geographical separation,
they cannot interbreed but would be
expected to do so if geographic barriers are
removed.
●The separated populations evolve
independently and adapt to their respective
barriers resulting to new species.
Allopatric Speciation
●begins when a species splits into two or
more geographically separated populations
●Splitting can happen in either of two ways
○Vicariant speciation
○Founder event
Vicariant speciation
●initiated when climatic or geological
changes fragment a species’s habitat,
producing impenetrable barriers that
separate different populations
geographically.
●For example, a mammalian species inhabiting a
lowland forest could be divided by uplifting of a
mountain barrier, sinking and flooding of a geological
fault, or climatic changes that cause prairie or desert
conditions to encroach on the forest.
Vicariant speciation
●ancestral population is fragmented,
individual fragments are usually left fairly
intact.
●does not induce genetic change by
reducing populations to a small size or by
transporting them to unfamiliar
environments.
● For example, formation of the isthmus of Panama
separated populations of the sea urchin genus
Eucidaris , leading to formation of the pair of
species.
Founder Effect
●small number of individuals to disperse to
a distant place where no other members of
their species occur. The dispersing
individuals may establish a new
population.
Founder Effect
●On rare occasions, strong winds can
transport a few flies from one forest to
another, geographically isolated forest
where the flies are able to start a new
population.
●Unlike what happens in vicariant
speciation, the new population initially has
a very small size, which can cause its
genetic structure to change quickly and
dramatically from that of its ancestral
population
Nonallopatric Speciation
Sympatric Speciation
●different individuals within a species
become specialized for occupying different
components of the environment.
●By seeking and using very specific habitats
in a single geographic area, different
populations achieve sufficient physical and
adaptive separation to evolve reproductive
barriers.
Parapatric Speciation
●geographically intermediate between
allopatric and sympatric speciation.
●Two species are called parapatric with
respect to each other if their geographic
ranges are primarily allopatric but make
contact along a borderline that neither
species successfully crosses.
Parapatric Speciation
●In parapatric speciation, a geographically
continuous ancestral species evolves within
its range a borderline across which
populations evolve species-level
differences while maintaining geographic
contact along the border.
Adaptive Radiation
production of several ecologically diverse
species from a common ancestral species
Adaptive Radiation
Gradualism
●opposes the arguments for the sudden
origin of species
●shares the Lyell’s uniformitarianism the
notion that we must not explain past
changes by invoking unusual catastrophic
events that are not observed today
 Gradualism
Populational gradualism Phenotypic gradualism
● new traits become ● new traits, even those
established in a that are strikingly
population by different from
increasing their ancestral ones, are
frequency initially from produced in a series
a small fraction of the of small, incremental
population to a steps.
majority of the
population.
Natural selection
●major process by which evolution occurs
in Darwin’s theory of evolution
●gives natural explanation for the origins of
adaptation, including all developmental,
behavioral, anatomical, and physiological
attributes that enhance an organism’s
ability to use environmental resources to
survive and to reproduce.
 Genetic Equilibrium
●Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium
○the hereditary process alone does not
produce evolutionary change. In large
biparental populations, allelic frequencies
and genotypic ratios attain an equilibrium
in one generation and remain constant
thereafter unless disturbed by recurring
mutations, natural selection, migration,
nonrandom mating, or genetic drift
(random sorting). Such disturbances are
the sources of microevolutionary change.
Factors that disturb genetic
equilibrium
1.random genetic drift
2.nonrandom mating
3.recurring mutation
4.migration
5.natural selection