Class 9/16 Evolution unit start

Evolution definition: And accumulation of inherited genetic changes in a population over time in
response to changing environments

Biology is born out of evolution; without evolution, no biology. Biology assumes organisms
change, and study the ways they change.

For Darwin, species were assumed to be stagnant and perfect.

The smallest thing that can evolve is a population; it is a population that are subject to
environmental effects.

Darwin did not invent Evolution; he gave us a mechanism, called natural selection.

Darwin
Proposed it in 1859 in his work of the Origin of Species: By means of natural selection.

Darwin took 5 years aboard HMS Beagle, and a 20 in total to write it.

He hesitated to publish because what he put forward was earth-shattering

Alfred Russell Wallace push him to publish.

Darwin and john Baptiste Lamarck

Lamark put forward some evolutionary thoughts. Contrast to Darwin.

Lamarck's principles: Wrong. He argued for drive toward complexity. Evolution is not driven
toward any One Direction.

Nature can only act upon phenotypes

Animals and prerequisites:

1. Multicellular
2. Consumer
3. Ability to move of their own volition

Lamarck's principles:

1. No such thing as Extinction

2. Evolution drives towards complexity. No regressing. E.g. Why blind if eyeball exist
3. Acquired traits. Any traits acquired over a lifetime, transfer to offspring. If you lift, offspring get
stronger as a result.
4. Disuse and use. If you don't use an organ, it's disappears. If you abuse an organ, it gets
bigger.

Darwinian Evolutions key Concepts: Mechanism of evolution is natural selection, with data and
examples.

Common ancestry is a result of descent with modification.

Darwin's natural selection is the only accepted mechanism of evolution.

Modern human evolution is not following Darwin's natural selection.

Natural selection

Darwin's parameters of natural selection

1. Populations exhibit diversity based on inheritable traits. Every natural population meets the
parameter, as everything can mutate

2. Populations must be able to reproduce. All life meets this parameter.

3. Populations live in environments with limited resources and can reproduce over the carrying
capacity (overreproduce).

4. Populations must be in competition within themselves.

5. Populations must be given enough time, in generations, to evolve. Phenotypic change

happens after 20 to 25 Generations.

Parameters 3 and 4 are a product of Malthus (economist).

Because all members of it population are in competition for limited resources, nature selects
those individuals that are most adapted / fit for that environment.

To be adapted means to have the most advantageous traits.

The environment decides whether a trait is advantageous.

To be selected by Nature means to be given greater reproductive success.

Natural selection word for word: Nature selects individuals with most advantageous traits in their
environment by granting them greater reproductive success.

Darwin believes that the biological Destiny of all organisms is to reproduce.

Greater reproductive success equals greater amounts of viable, fertile offspring.

After these advantageous traits are dispersed through a population, it becomes an adaptation.

Adaptation: Inherited characteristics that increase an organism's ability to survive/reproduce in

one’s environment.

Individuals with beneficial inheritable traits leave more offspring therefore the frequency of such
traits increases over time.

Adaptations come from random mutations.

Adaptations in post costs as well as benefits. See: Mammals moving: advantageous for
catching prey, but also HUGE energy expenditure.

Powers come At A Cost.

Class 9/19 Darwinian Evolution &
Adaptations
Darwin's two biggest contributions:
Evolution by natural selection
Common ancestry by descent with modification

Darwin was obsessed with diversity of species on Earth and explanation of extinctions

While in class, perpetuated traits are advantageous. However, all advantageous traits also
come with a penalty.

Powers at a cost

Case in point: Movement in animals

Allows us to move and catch prey more easily, but also energy expenditure
Complex movements in higher order animals (birds/mammals)

Coordinated movement of Limbs requires heavy neural pathway Foundation. This means higher
order animals are intolerant of chromosomal change.

As long as the benefits outweighs the cost, nature May select for it.

If the cost outweighs the benefits, nature will likely select against it

Fitness

How well adapted an organism is to their environment.

Measure of one's advantageous traits

Fitness of organisms quantifiable by a reproductive success

Many paths to the same goal: K versus R strategists

R favors reproduction, k favors survivability.

R = massive clutch size, low viability

K = high viability, fewer offspring
Females care for Offspring because they have confirmed lineage

The more adapted organisms are to their environment the more likely they are to reproduce,
leading to Greater reproductive success.

In a population, there are individuals that are less fits. They still reproduce. These less fit
individuals reproducing give the population diversity.

In the event of environmental change, nature must still have other traits to select from.

Different Fitness = differential reproductive success

Diversity is necessary for the long-term success of a population in a changing ecosystem

All organisms have Fitness. If an embryo has zero Fitness, it would never have survived
embryonic development, and would have perished by a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage)

Natural selection versus diversity

Natural selection is a mechanism against diversity. As the end result of natural selection is all
organisms display similar traits.

To maintain diversity, ability of less fit individuals to reproduce is key.

Natural selection is tolerant of diversity, but the degree of Tolerance is dependent on the
intensity of competition

Increased competition leads to increased selective pressure leads to lower tolerance of

diversity, and vice versa

Change is always good, but not necessarily good for everyone.

Gradualism

Darwin believed that evolution is a slow and continuous process.

Small and gradual changes accumulate into a large phenotypic differences over large periods of
time.
Opens the gate for speciation

If environment changes, fitness changes as well. If the environment changes, different selective
pressures. The goal is to have enough diversity that the population survives.

Extinction

Evidence that Fitness can change

Almost always due to a change in the environment and an inability to adapt.

Species become extinct because they can no longer survive and reproduce in their new
environments.

Two reasons why:

The change is fast and drastic
There is not enough diversity in the population

Extinction can cause the dying population to abandon a niche, allowing other populations to
exploit newly available niches.

Adaptive radiation: The emergence of numerous species from a single ancestral species
introduced to new and diverse ecological niches.

Adaptive radiation is likely to occur in environments where there is an array of underutilized

resources/niches.
Class 9/23 Common Ancestry
How did Darwin find that galapagos finches are Divergent descendants from ecuadorian finch?
Similarities

The different environments of the Galapagos have different selective pressures.

Diversity represents different environments while it's similarities represent the same
environments

Darwin's Tree of Life dictates that all life is a result of descent with modification, known to
Modern biologists as common ancestry.

Modifications depend on the specific selective pressures available at any given time

Don't believe in one universal common ancestor population which all other populations diverge.

Darwin believes that's evolution is a slow, process. Small changes eventually stack into large
phenotypic changes.

Darwin argues that no organism will be perfect, or is evolution directed.

Natural selection that chooses the best traits available in the population, not best overall.

Evolution is a remodeling process not a modeling process.

Homologous structures: Similar anatomical structures derived from a common ancestor adapted
for different things.

Small collections of Bones mean increased Mobility

Divergent evolution

Different species evolved from a common ancestor as different populations are acted upon by
different selective pressures

Divergent evolution gives rise to call homologous structures

Patterns of inheritance: How they explain heterozygotes

Complete, co, incomplete, x-linked, all punnett squares

Polygenic, epistasis, pleiotropic, no punnett squares.

Polygenic inheritance results in a range of phenotypes.

Sex determination in mammals is polygenic. There is still a range but intersex is not as common

Three modes of selection:

Directional, stabilizing, disruptive.
Class 9/25 Convergent Evolution
Nature selects polygenic inheritance because it leads to diversity

Three modes of selection always occur during environmental change.

Directional: Was anyone extreme phenotype. To the point of the other one is selected against.

Watching a population and change with environment.

Stabilizing: Shift toward the intermediate. Select against both extremes.

Disruptive: Shift towards both extremes and against the intermediate. Occurs during a transition
between ecosystems (ecotone).
Divergent and convergence evolution

Divergent evolution it dictates that's all similarities are the results of common ancestry
Convergent evolution dictates that similarities can be the result of similar selective pressures

Convergence evolution definition: Independence evolution of structural or functional similarity

between distantly related species as a result of adaptations to a similar environments

As homologous structures are to Divergence evolution analogous structures are to convergence

evolution

Analogous structures are anatomically different and not the results of a common ancestor.
Example dorsal fin / torpedo shapes between shark / dolphin

Sexual selection the natural selection that increases an animal's ability to attract mates. See
peacocks and lions.

Individuals of one sex are specific in selecting their mates. Generally females are selective sex.

Results in a sexual dimorphism, emails look different from females. Results in difference in
phenotype between males and females through secondary sex characteristics. Example size,
color, ornamentation.

Artificial selection/selective breeding

Process whereby humans affect variation in other species by selecting for particular traits.
Intentional changes. See dog breeds

Vestigial structures: Some remnants of an organ which was useful for a previous ancestor
species, which is currently useless but offers no disadvantage
Class 9/30 Microevolution and Beyond
Darwin
Micro Evolution and genotypic change

Accumulation of small changes in the gene pool of a population overtime.

Gene pool: Collection of all alleles presents in a population at any given time, including
repressed alleles.

Before you can have enough change, you must have genotypic change.

Microevolution and deals in a allele frequency: How often a gamete has an allele.

Always implying sexual reproduction

Sexual reproduction does not change the alleles, it simply shuffles the cards. Always assume a
simple mendelian dominance unless told otherwise.

If allele frequencies change over time, the population is evolving. In any population with two
alleles/genes, p+q=1 where p is the frequency of the dominant and q is the frequency of the
recessive

Causes of micro evolution

Mutations, gene flow, natural selection, non-random mating, genetic drift

Mutations produce new alleles

Gene flow is the movement of alleles between populations by migration

Non random mating

Genetic drift is random events

Natural selection is evolution driven by environment

Interpreting / inbreeding is a product of a small population. It leads to low genetic diversity. In

mammals increases the risk of recessive abnormalities
Bottleneck versus founder effect:

Bottleneck is caused by sharp reduction in population due to natural disaster, leaves few
survivors behind. Low genetic diversity in overall population.

Founder is caused by one section of the population breaking off and making a new population.
Low genetic diversity in new population.
Class 10/3 Hardy-Weinberg
Hardy Weinberg equation

A population is not evolving when the gene pool is at equilibrium. To be at equilibrium one must
have allele frequencies that do not change.

Hardy Weinberg parameters of equilibrium:

There can be no mutations
There can be no gene flow
There can be no natural selection
There can be no non random mating
There can be no small population

Complete opposite of microevolution

Hardy Weinberg gives us a point of comparison, to allow us to ascertain information about the
population.

The equation can only be used with a population at equilibrium. As long as the population is at
equilibrium, we can predict allele and genotype frequencies when given any information.

p^2 + 2pq + q^2 = 1

Where p^2 = homozygous dominant proportion, 2pq = heterozygous proportion, q^2 =

homozygous recessive proportion

Speciation

Members of the same species can mate to produce a viable, fertile offspring

When enough small changes accumulate in the gene pools of two different populations, they
are eventually unable to produce viable, fertile offspring
Class 10/10 Speciation
Two types: allopatric and sympatric

allopatric: results of a geographical barrier

sympatric: Results of a reproductive barrier (notable lack of geographical barrier)

Gradualism versus punctuated equilibrium

Punctuated equilibrium is a speciation during which the species evolve very quickly in response
to environmental change, assuming great diversity. Multiple trait changes at once.

Followed by long period of equilibrium, as a result of no environmental change

What maintains species? Reproductive isolation

Pre-zygotic: Prevention of mating/ gamete fusion

Geographic: Separate space

Ecological: Separate habitats
Temporal: Different mating seasons
Behavioral: Difference reproductive rituals
Gamete: Incompatible gametes
Mechanic: Incompatible anatomies

Post-zygotic: After mating and fusion

Low hybrid viability: No survival of Offspring into maturity

Infertility

Taxonomy/phylogeny

Move from General to specific

Domain-Eukarya
Kingdom-anamalia
Phylum-chordata
Class-mammalia
Order-primates
Family-hominidae
Genus-homo
Species-sapiens

Dear King Philip came over for good spaghetti

Classified organisms based on similarity. Phylogeny is based in evolutionary similarities

Carolus Linnaeus classified organisms hierarchically

Five kingdoms: Monera, Protista, fungi, plants, animals.

Phylogeny

Based on evolutionary relationships

Pathogenetic trees depict the line of evolutionary descent from a common ancestor species;
hypothesis based on evidence.

A cladogram is a type of phylogenetic tree based on characteristics. The more related the
species are, the more characteristics they share.