Lecture 6 - The basics of evolution

WHAT IS EVOLUTION?

The theory of descent with modification - two main historical models for the origin
of species
● Theory of special creation (not supported)
○ Species do not change (fish stays a fish, bird stays a bird)
○ Lineages do not split (one species cannot diverge and turn into another
species)
○ Each species is separately created
○ Each species is independently created (no clear coherence or relationship
between various species)
○ Earth and life are young
● Descent with modification (evolution)
○ Became accepted by scientific community after Darwin published the Origin
of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859)
○ Earth’s species are the products of descent with modification from a
common ancestor

5 crucial elements - theory of descent with modification

● Species are not immutable, but change over time (microevolution)
● Lineages split and diverge, thereby increasing the number of species (speciation)
● Over long periods of time, novel forms of life can derive from earlier forms
(macroevolution, takes more time)
○ E.g. fish → amphibian/reptile/mammal
● Species are not derived independently, but from common (shared) ancestors
○ E.g. leopard was derived from earlier forms of catlike organisms, and even
before that the first mammals
● The Earth and life are “old” (4.6 billion years & 3.8 billion years respectively)

PART 1

Microevolution

Evidence:
● Selective breeding (artificial selection)
● Observation of natural populations
● The anatomy of living species
Selective breeding
● 24 generations of selective breeding for far-running mice
● Selected for far running
● Whole population has changed into a population that is better at running
(phenotype/characteristic)

Observation of natural populations

● In a population of birds, average beak size/shape may change from one generation
to the next

Anatomy of living species - vestigial structures

● useless/rudimentary version of a body part that was important to ancestors/has an
important function in other, closely related, species
 ● E.g.
○ wings in kiwis
○ Tailbone in humans

PART 2

Speciation

Note: something is considered a separate species when they can produce offspring with
other members of the same species, but not with members of neighbouring species

E.g. Darwin’s finches (Galapagos Islands)

● These finches are all different species
● From species to species there are similarities (2 next to each other)
● There is a gradual change in all these populations to the extremes (dark with big
beak, light with small beak)
 ● There must have been an ancestral species (“original bird/mother of all birds”) that
eventually diverged out into all these descendant species of birds

What is a species - 3 definitions

● The biological species concept: making fertile offspring
○ This, however, does not take into account organisms that don’t reproduce
sexually
● The evolutionary species concept: having a shared evolutionary lineage
○ In the field it is not that useful
● The phenetic species concept: having shared phenotypic characteristic
○ Can be problematic e.g. being able to fly/having wings, both birds (avians)
and bats (mammals) have wings but are definitely not the same species
○ Both developed the ability to fly, but developed them in various different
ways and at different moments

Evidence - it’s a gradual process going through 4 different stages

→ threespine sticklebacks
● Start with a population with variation (e.g. humans, all very different, different
characteristics)
● But then you see that there’s a distinction between some sub-populations (colours),
but they still interbreed (& make fertile offspring)
● This difference, however, can become stronger and stronger, developing distinct
populations with only limited interbreeding
○ (e.g. maybe because these populations only occasionally meet each other and
can produce offspring)
● They develop in different ways, develop different characteristics through
microevolution. Until they reach a point (when this has continued) and you have
reproductively isolated populations (=species)

PART 3
Macroevolution
● Novel forms of life can derive from earlier forms
● E.g. tetrapods arose from a lineage of fish (this kind of dramatic change over time is
called macroevolution)

Evidence:
● Fossils - if novel life forms are descended with modification from earlier forms,
then the fossil record should capture evidence of transmutations in progress
○ From water to land
○ From land to air
■ Rudimentary feathers (keeping warm, “pretty” for sexual purposes)
■ Developed all the way to motor flight
PART 4

All organisms are related

● We all come from a common ancestor, LUCA (last universal common ancestor)
● Starting point for all these branches of life, the 3 main domains of life:
○ Archaea
○ Eukaryotes (plants, animals and fungi)
○ Bacteria

Evidence for common ancestry

● The theory of descent with modification ultimately connects all organisms to a
single common ancestor
● The crucial evidence for universal common ancestry is homology (the “study of
likeness”)
○ A state of similarity in structure & anatomical position but not necessarily in
function between different organisms
○ STRUCTURAL HOMOLOGY: vertebrate forelimbs have different functions,
but the same sequence and arrangement of bones

○ MOLECULAR HOMOLOGY: the genetic code is universal (with a few minor

exceptions)
■ All organisms inherited their fundamental internal machinery from a
common ancestor
■ Nucleotides (bases, A T C and G)
PART 5

The Earth and life are old

● The concept of deep time (was proposed in 1700 by Hutton) referring to the old
geological age of the Earth
● He looked at how sand, mud & gravel deposited over time or how rocks were
formed
● Support came after the discovery of radioactivity, Marie Curie discovered that
certain atoms (radioactive) could decay into “offspring atoms” with the precision of
a clock - radiometric dating
○ If you look at how these elements are represented in a certain fossil or rock
you can determine what their age is

SUMMARY

PART 6

The mechanism driving evolution: natural selection

Natural selection, based on the following postulates of Darwin:

1. The individuals within a population differ from one another
2. The differences are, at least in part, passed from parent to offspring
3. Some individuals are more successful at surviving & reproducing than others
 4. The successful individuals are not just lucky: they succeed because of the variant
traits they have inherited & will pass to their offspring

E.g. Evolution of beak shape of finches in Galapagos islands

● Beak shape determines the kind of food a bird can eat
○ Big beak is useful in dry season to crack hard, big seeds (so smaller beaks
could not eat these and have to eat smaller seeds - more prevalent in wet
season)
○ So the environment can play a selective role, giving advantage to animals
with a big/small beak

Some individuals are more successful at surviving & reproducing than others
● Monitoring of beak size before and after a big drought in 1977 (this influences the
availability of the number & type of food, in this case seeds)
● In this drought, large hard seeds were more prevalent than small soft seeds
● So in this drought, the big beak birds had an advantage
○ It was easier for them to get their food
○ Therefore they were more likely to survive & produce offspring

Natural selection is dynamic

● Even though during the drought years, the big beak birds had an advantage, the
small beak birds would have an advantage in the wet seasons
○ Small beak birds survive better and reproduce more because they harvest
small seeds more efficiently
PART 7

Natural selection & “the modern synthesis”

Some fundamental concepts of natural selection

● Darwinian fitness (survival of the fittest)
○ Through natural selection, individuals with particular variant traits are more
fit (do better) than others
○ They are better at surviving & reproducing, offspring makes up a greater
percentage of the population
○ A trait that increases an organism's fitness (compared to others who don’t
have it) is called an adaptation, the trait is adaptive
● Lack of foresight
○ Evolution by natural selection involves no conscious entity with foresight
(unthinking, unfeeling process, “it just happens”)
■ E.g. the birds with big beaks have no idea whether it will be an
advantage in the next season
○ Evolving populations always lag at least a generation behind changes in the
environment
○ Natural selection happens to individuals, but what changes is populations

○ Natural selection acts on phenotypes (traits), but evolution is the changes in

genotype (allele) frequencies
● Evolution leads to adaptation, not perfection
○ The organisms resulting from natural selection are not perfect, they can look
“cobbled together from spare parts” rather than rationally designed
■ E.g. naked mole rats, don’t look like an optimally designed animal,
but it is functional and it works
 ■ E.g. the male mosquitofish, its anal fin (basically its dick) can be
bigger & more attractive to females. However, it is much less agile
when swimming (can be more easily spotted/caught by predators)

● Individuals behave selfishly

○ They do not do things for the good of their species
○ They behave in a way that maximises their genetic contribution to future
generations (they want to have as much of their offspring in the next
generations as possible, even if their genetics are not as good as that of
others)

The modern synthesis

● At darwin’s time, nothing was known about inheritance (genetics)
● Once we discovered it, it led to a reformulation of the theory of evolution

1. Individuals vary as a result of mutation & recombination (of DNA)

2. Individuals pass their alleles (version of genes) to offspring
3. In every generation, some individuals are more successful than others at surviving
& reproducing
4. The individuals that are most successful at surviving & reproducing have alleles and
allelic combinations that best adapt them to their environment

→ the outcome is that alleles associated with higher fitness increase in frequency from
one generation to the next