Evolution and Natural Selection

Darwin's Theory of Evolution by

Natural Selection

Darwin's theory was based on four

observations:
Individuals within a species differ from
each other there is variation.
Offspring resemble their parents
characteristics are inherited.
Far more offspring are generally
produced than survive to maturity most
organisms die young from predation,
disease and competition.
Populations are usually fairly constant in
size.

Darwin realised that the organisms that die young were not random, but were selected by
their characteristics. He concluded that individuals that were better adapted to their
environment compete better than the others, survive longer and reproduce more, so passing
on more of their successful genes to the next generation.
Darwin wasn't the first to suggest evolution of species, but he was the first to suggest a
plausible mechanism for the evolution - natural selection, and to provide a wealth of
evidence for it.
Darwin used the analogy of selective breeding (or artificial selection) to explain natural
selection. In selective breeding, desirable characteristics are chosen by humans, and only
those individuals with the best characteristics are used for breeding. In this way species can
be changed over a period of time. All domesticated species of animal and plant have been
selectively bred like this, often for thousands of years, so that most of the animals and plants
we are most familiar with are not really natural and are nothing like their wild relatives (if any
exist). The analogy between artificial and natural selection is a very good one, but there is
one important difference - Humans have a goal in mind; nature does not.

Summary of Natural Selection

1. There is genetic variation, due to mutation, in a characteristics within a population
2. Individuals with characteristics that make them less well adapted to their environment will
die young from predation, disease or competition.
3. Individuals with characteristics that make them well adapted to their environment will be
selected for and survive and reproduce.
4. The allele frequency will change in each generation.

Examples of Natural Selection

Well look at some examples of natural selection in action. In fact most things youve studied
in the biology course (like protein structure, lung anatomy, the nitrogen cycle, disease,
anything) are examples of natural selection. It has been said that nothing in biology makes
sense, except in the light of evolution.

The Peppered Moth.

These light-coloured moths are well camouflaged from bird predators against pale lichencovered bark of trees, while rare mutant dark moths are easily picked off. During the
industrial revolution in the 19th century, birch woods near industrial centres became black
with pollution. In this changed environment the black moths had a selective advantage and
became the most common colour, while the pale moths were easily predated and became
rare. Kettlewell tested this by releasing dark and light moths in polluted and unpolluted
environments and observing selective predation. Since pollution has cleared up in the 20th
century the selection has revered again and pale moths are now favoured again over dark
ones.

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics.

Antibiotics kill bacteria, but occasionally a chance mutant bacterium appears that is resistant
to an antibiotic. In an environment where the antibiotic is often present, this mutant has an
enormous selective advantage since all the normal (wild type) bacteria are killed leaving the
mutant cell free to reproduce and colonise the whole environment without any competition.
Some farmers routinely feed antibiotics to their animals to prevent infection, but this is a
perfect environment for resistant bacteria to thrive. The best solution is to stop using the
antibiotic so that the resistant strain has no selective advantage, and may die out.
The Coelocanth.
This fish species was known only from ancient fossils and was assumed to have been
extinct for 70 million years until a living specimen was found in a trawler net off South Africa
in 1938. So this species has hardly changed in all that time. The deep ocean is one of the
most stable environments on Earth, so there was little selection pressure to change.

Lactose tolerance in humans.

Some people are lactose intolerant, and feel ill (including diarrhoea and vomiting) when they
drink milk. In fact globally most human adults are lactose intolerant and this is the normal

condition: lactose tolerance in adults is a mutation. All infant mammals make lactase to
digest lactose in their mothers milk, and they all stop producing lactase after they are
weaned (its production is switched off at about age four in most humans).
Around 10,000 years ago humans gradually changed from being mainly hunter-gatherers to
being mainly farmers, and for the first time animal milk was available as a food source.
Humans who, through a chance mutation, could drink milk without feeling ill were at an
advantage, as they could supplement their normal diet with milk in harsh times (and farming
was very unreliable in the early days). By natural selection they survived and their genes
spread in their populations. As a result in human societies that adopted pastoral (animal)
farming (such as most Europeans, northern Indians and some Africans) are generally
lactose tolerant today, while the rest (most Asians, Africans, native Americans and
Australians) remain lactose intolerant as adults.
HIV resistance in humans.
The AIDS virus HIV first arose in human populations in the 1930s in West
Africa, where it spread from primates through the practice of killing and eating bush meat.
Since then it has gradually spread around the world. Why is HIV so fatal to humans, but has
so little effect on chimps? It turns out that chimps are resistant because they have a protein
(called CCL3) that stops HIV entering and infecting white blood cells. Now some humans
have this protein too, and it seems that the more copies of the gene for CCL3 you have, the
more resistant you are to HIV. Chimps have on average 11 copies of the CCL3 gene, African
humans have on average 6 copies, and non-African humans have on average 2 copies. In
Africa people who, by chance, have many copies are favoured and will reproduce, while
those with few copies die young without reproducing. So natural selection in humans
explains the frequency of the CCL3 gene. A thousand years in the future, if we have not
developed a medical cure for HIV, the whole human population will probably have evolved to
possess around 11 copies of CCL3.

Types of Natural Selection

Populations change over time as their environment changes. These changes can be
recorded as changing histograms of a particular phenotype (which of course is due to
changes in the underlying alleles). These histograms show three kinds of natural selection,
depending on which phenotypes are selected by the environment. The shaded areas
represent the phenotypes that are favoured.

 Directional Selection occurs when one

extreme phonotype (e.g. tallest) is
favoured over the other extreme (e.g.
shortest). This happens when the
environment changes in a particular way.
"Environment" includes biotic as well as
abiotic factors, so organisms evolve in
response to each other. e.g. if predators
run faster there is selective pressure for
prey to run faster, or if one tree species
grows taller, there is selective pressure for
other to grow tall. Most environments do
change (e.g. due to migration of new
species, or natural catastrophes, or
climate change, or to sea level change, or
continental drift, etc.), so directional
selection is common.

Stabilising (or Normalising) Selection.

This occurs when the intermediate
phenotype is selected over extreme
phenotypes, and tends to occur when the
environment doesn't change much. For
example birds eggs and human babies of
intermediate birth weight are most likely to
survive. Natural selection doesn't have to
cause a directional change, and if an
environment doesn't change there is no
pressure for a well-adapted species to
change. Fossils suggest that many
species remain unchanged for long
periods of geological time.

Disruptive (or Diverging) Selection.

This occurs when both extremes of
phenotype are selected over intermediate
types. For example in a population of
finches, birds with large and small beaks
feed on large and small seeds respectively
and both do well, but birds with
intermediate beaks have no advantage,
and are selected against.

The Origin of New Species Speciation

The examples of evolution by natural selection we have just seen dont always give rise to
new species, though they do illustrate change. But the 100 million species that do and have
existed arose by evolution, so we need to understand how.
We define a species as:
Organisms in the same species are similar in appearance (morphology), behaviour and
biochemistry, and have the same ecological niche.
Organisms in the same species can breed together in their natural environment to produce
fertile offspring, but cannot breed with members of other species.
Organisms in the same species share a common ancestor.
How do new species arise?
New species arise when one existing species splits into two reproductively isolated
populations that go their separate ways. This most commonly happens when the two
populations become physically separated from each other (allopatric speciation):
1. Start with an interbreeding population of
one species.
2. The population becomes divided
(isolation) by a physical barrier such as
water, mountains, desert, or just a large
distance. This can happen when some of
the population migrates or is dispersed, or
when the geography changes
catastrophically (e.g. earthquakes,
volcanoes, floods) or gradually (erosion,
continental drift). The populations must be
reproductively isolated, so that there is no
gene flow between the groups.
3. If the environments (abiotic or biotic)
are different in the two places (and they
almost certainly will be), then different
characteristics will be selected by natural
selection and the two populations will
evolve differently. Even if the
environments are similar, the populations
may still change by random genetic drift,
especially if the population is small. The
allele frequencies in the two populations
will become different.
4. Much later, if the barrier is now
removed and the two populations meet
again, they are now so different that they
can no longer interbreed. They therefore
remain reproductively isolated and are two

distinct species. They may both be

different from the original species, if it still
exists elsewhere.

Summary of Speciation
1. A population becomes separated into two groups that are reproductively isolated, so
that there is no gene flow between the groups.
2. The two groups environments are different, so natural selection favours different
characteristics.
3. The allele frequencies in the two groups will change in different ways.
4. Eventually the two populations will be unable to interbreed, so will be different species.

It is meaningless to say that one species is absolutely better than another species, only that
it is better adapted to that particular environment. A species may be well-adapted to its
environment, but if the environment changes, then the species must evolve or die. In either
case the original species will become extinct. Since all environments change eventually, it is
the fate of all species to become extinct (including our own).