Mechanisms of Evolution:

Population Selection and Change

 Overview of this Section
• Defining Population and Species
• Mutations
• Natural Selection
• Gene Flow
• Genetic Drift
• Sickle Cell Anemia and Other Deleterious
Genes
• Speciation
Populations, Gene Pools, and Species

• Population: In a species, A community of

individuals where mates are usually found
• Gene pool: all the alleles in a population
• Species: a population of organisms whose
members can interbreed under natural
circumstances reproduce fertile (viable) offspring
• The species is the basic unit of all breeding
populations
Counterexample: Related Animals
whose Offspring are Sterile
• Female horses and male
donkeys can interbreed,
• . • But their offspring (mules)
• cannot reproduce fertile
offspring
• This cartoon shows a male
donkey attracted to a female
horse (mare)
• The mule (right) will not
reproduce
• Mules are bred for their strength
and their even temperament
Related Animals That Can But Do
Not Interbreed in the Wild
• Lions and tigers have interbred in
captivity and reproduced viable offspring
(top left); this couple calls the hybrid
“liger”
• But they don’t interbreed in the wild
• Shades of Gray: Dogs and wolves can
interbreed and reproduce—in captivity
and in the wild
• Recently, Canis familiaris has
taxonomically been lumped with Canis
lupus (“wolf dog”, lower left)
Sources of Variation in Species:
• Mutation: change in DNA structure
• Segregation: Separation of the DNA strands in
sex cells at meiosis
• Independent Assortment: What occurs when
genes on different chromosomes segregate to
gametes independently of one another.
• Genes on the same chromosomes do not
segregate independently of one another.
• Recombination: the exchange of genetic
material between pairs of chromosomes during
the first stage of meiosis.
 Mutations
• Mutation: Any change in the genetic code
• Point Mutation: Change in a single triplet of a
DNA chain, often with no consequence.
• Sickle cell anemia is one significant
exception:
• The amino acid Glutamic acid that changes to
valine by one molecule in one triplet is the
cause of this disease: CTC to CAC.
• The effect: the normal red blood cells (circle)
take on the shape of a sickle (left diagram)
• The sickle-shaped cells cannot carry sufficient
oxygen and block capillaries, the small blood
vessels that carry oxygen to the cells.
• Consequences: fatigue, stunted growth, fever,
and death by the 20s
Chromosomal Mutation
• Chromosomal Mutation:
Change in a chromosome or a
large portion of one
• The change is usually
deleterious
• For example the replication of
three copies of chromosome
21 (of the 23 pairs) is
associated with Down
Syndrome (upper left)
• Occurs when a pair of parental
chromosomes fail to segregate
at the second stage of meiosis,
resulting in the 3 copies. (lower
left)
 Mutations as “Errors”
• Mutations are random, frequent, and occur at a
constant rate.
• Mutations are important to evolution if
• they involve changes in gametes (sex cells)
• These are passed on to the next generation
• Mutations are usually deleterious; most Down
syndrome victims miscarry.
• New forms are usually poorly adaptive to an
environment, so that they may not have a
chance at all to reproduce
Mutations as “Necessary Errors”
• Mutations may also prove neutral, or they may
yield even better (more adaptive) phenotypes
• If they occur in sex cells, they will be selected
and passed on to the next generation.
• They add variation to a gene pool—all the
alleles in a population have a better chance to
survive in several niches (microenvironments)
• Bottom Line: No mutation, no change, no
evolution
Sources of Variation in Gene Pools
• Gene Pool: All the alleles in a population
• Natural Selection: The environmental selection
of species that influence differential reproductive
success
• Gene Flow: The process in which alleles from
one population are introduced into another
population
• Genetic Drift: Random changes in a small
population that are the products of chance.
 Natural Selection
• Natural Selection: textbook definition
• Evolutionary change based on differential
reproductive success of individuals within a
species
• Generally, the differential reproductive success
is the product of environmental pressures.
• Summary of Principle
• Adage: man proposes, God disposes.
• Mutation proposes, natural selection disposes
Example: Drought on Galápagos
Islands: 1977
• Natural selection can be best illustrated in a
1977 drought on Galapagos Island
• Prior to 1977, there were Finches of various
sizes in body and in beak
• The selection factor, drought, brought about a
drop in the insect population and favored seeds
with a tougher cover to minimize water loss.
• These changes favored the finches with larger
body size and longer beaks, better at cracking
nuts (such as Geospiza fortis, left)
• Selection results were dramatic: only 14% of the
total population survived
• The finches that reproduced had those two
attributes-large body size and long beaks. .
• This does not mean that the others were wiped
out; when the drought ended, the population of
other species of finches returned.
Example: Galapagos 2003-2004
Drought
• But natural selection continued to
work to this day.
• In 1982, another population of
large finches, G. magnirostris (No.
1, left photo) arrived on the
Galapagos Islands and ate three
times as many seeds as G. fortis
(No. 2) and the smaller finches
• Smaller finches again went into
steep decline (no. 3 and 4).
• Then in 2003 and again in 2004,
another drought struck, increasing
the mortality rate of the larger
finches
• This left the seeds for the smaller
finches, who increased their
population at the expense of the
larger species.
 Types of Natural Selection:
Direction and Stability
• Directional Selection: Selection characterized
b a generation-after-generation shift in a
population in a specific direction
• Examples: Beak size among finches in 1977;
bipedalism among hominins (from Lucy to us)
• Stabilizing Selection: Selection characterized
by a generation-after-generation in a population
toward a mean (average).
• Example: long-term stabilization of finch size
and beak length, especially induced in the
droughts of 2003 and 2004.
 Natural Selection and Sickle Cell
Anemia

• As noted above for sickle cell anemia, mutation often has deleterious effects
• However, natural selection has a part in tropical areas where malaria
predominates
• Homozygotes for sickle cell anemia are selected against—they die off
• Homozygotes for normal red blood cells are subject to elimination by
malaria
• But heterozygotes with sickle cells are immune to malaria and so are more
likely to survive than homozygotes wth normal red blood cells
Sexual Selection:
• Intersexual Selection: Traits that
make males more attractive to females
(Peacock wooing peahen, top).
• Intrasexual Competition: Sexual
selection that make males better able to
compete for sexual access to females
(as in this gorilla fight).
• Sexual Dimorphism or physical
difference of males and females of the
same species, play a role in both
species.
• Peacocks (male) are showier than
peahens; male gorillas are twice the
size of females.
Kin Selection
• Kin Selection: Behavior which increases
an individual’s chances of his/her genes
being propagated into the next generation.
• Altruism: Behavior characterized by self-
denial or self-sacrifice to benefit others;
seen especially among close kin.
• Inclusive Fitness: An individual’s own
fitness and his or her effect on the fitness
of any biological kin.
• Grooming behavior among these
Japanese macaques is one example of
altruistic behavior, though it extends to
non-kin as well.
 Gene Flow
• Evolution: Change in allele frequency is one
part of definition of the term. They involve:
• Gene flow: Exchange of genes among
populations through interbreeding
• Breeding populations: populations within a
species that to some extent are genetically
isolated from other species
• Demes: same definition as breeding populations
with emphasis on smallest of such populations
 Sources of Gene Flow
• Migration of new populations into existing
ones
• Interbreeding without migration
• Removal of natural barriers between
populations
• Removal of reproductive barriers.
Mating as a Factor of Gene Flow
• Non-Random Mating: A preferential form of
mating
• Consanguineal Mating: Mating between
biological relatives.
• Incest Tabu: The prohibition against mating with
close relatives, especially primary relatives
(father-daughter, mother-son, and brother-sister
• Cross-Cousin Marriage: A practice often
observed, even required, between offspring of
brother and sister. Gene flow is limited here
• In this diagram, one sees the men marrying their
female cross cousins who are both their mother’s
brother’s and father’s sister’s daughters. This is
common among Indians of Brazilian Amazonia
 Marriage Promotes Gene Flow

• E.B. Tylor: Groups have always had the choice

of marrying out or dying out.
• Matrilateral cross-cousin marriage (man
marries mother’s brother’s daughter) increases
the network of kinship betweenthree or more
groups (left)
 Genetic Drift
• Definition: A process in a small population
whereby the frequency of alleles in the junior
generation will differ from that of the senior
generation due to sampling error
• Sampling Error: When a sampling error does
not accurately represent the population from
which the sample was taken
• This requires some background in statistics
 Genetic Drift: Statistical
Concepts
• Statistical Concepts important here
• Population: total number of individuals being researched
• Sample: Portion of population selected for study
• Random sample: selection whereby everyone has a
chance to be included
• Representative sample: selection whereby every group
has a chance to be included
• Sampling Error (in context): Condition whereby sample
chosen for study does not accurately reflect the
population from which the sample was taken either
because the sample is nonrandom or non-representative.
 Genetic Drift: Founder Effect
• When a population splits, each population will show a
non-representative sample of the genes
• Fission: Splitting up of population to form new
populations; usually populations are small
• Founder Effect: Genetic differences between population
produced by the fact that genetically different individuals
established (founded) the population
• Of 300 original North American Hutterites (a rural religious
group of Anabaptists), only 90 individuals contributed
genes to future generations
• Most of today’s 35,000 Hutterites trace their ancestry to
those 90
 Genetic Drift: Bottleneck Effect
• Bottleneck Effect: Following a severe reduction in
population size, only certain genes survive, which come to
characterize the descendant population
• Pennsylvania Dutch
• Of a total number of 333 Pennsylvania Dutch in one
study, 98 were found to have an allele for Tay-Sachs
disease, a genetic condition usually found among Jews of
Eastern European descent
• Tay-Sachs disease involves an enzyme deficiency of lipid
metabolism in which fatty acids attack nerve cells;
untreated, it usually causes death at an early age.
• All 333 were descended from a single couple, one of
whom apparently carried the allele that now affects 98
individual.
 Other Evolutionary Processes:
Genetic Drift 4
• Gamete sampling: Genetic changes are caused when genes are
passed to new generations In frequencies unlike those of the
parental generation
• This is a type of sampling error
• Example: PTC taster versus nontaster of phenylthiocarbamide (the
bitter substance in brussels sprouts)
• A heterozygous couple will possess each allele
• But that couple won’t necessarily pass on an equal number of
alleles to the next generation; chance determines the outcome of
the couple’s mating
• With large populations, chance plays less of a role.
• Genetic drift affects small populations
 Summary and Conclusions
• Source of new alleles is mutation
• Other sources of variation include
• Natural selection, based on survival value
of traits
• Gene flow, based on interbreeding
• Genetic drift, based on fission and
sampling error