Evolution I

There is grandeur in this view

of life
C. Darwin, On the Origin of
Species 1859

The Evolution of an Idea

would it be too bold to
imagine, that all warmblooded animals have
arisen from one living
filament, which THE
GREAT FIRST CAUSE
endued with animality
E.Darwin, Zoonomia vol
3 1794
Erasmus Darwin painted by
Joseph Wright of Darby

Lamarck: Transmutation of
Species

Life becomes more complex

over time

Adaption occurs via use and

disuse
Changes to an individual
during its lifetime are inherited
by its offspring
JeanBaptiste
Lamarck

Natural Theology
Most people thought that all species had been
created independently and had fixed forms
The living world was thought to have been created
by a benevolent god giving each species a specific
function in the natural world
Study of the natural world was thought to
illuminate gods creation and benevolance

Parasitic Wasps : Benevolence in action?

A Clergyman in the Making?

Born 1809 to a wealthy
doctors family

Charles Darwin

Studied Medicine at
Edinburgh before
transferring to Cambridge
to take a bachelors degree
At Cambridge he became
interested in geology and
natural history
After graduation he had to
wait a few years before he
could be ordained into the
church

Ice ages in Wales

Cwm Idwal and the Ogwen Valley. A

classic post glacial landscape

In the summer of
1831 he
travelled
through wales
with the
geologist Adam
Sedgwick
becoming
convinced of the
gradual origin of
the landscape

Robert Fitzroy
From an aristocratic Family (Uncle
was Lord Castlereagh)
Master and Commander of HMS
Beagle in 1831
Went on to become the second
governor of New Zeeland in the
1840s
Was a skilled geographer and
survayor

Vice-Admiral Robert
Fitzroy RN.

Developed the science of

metrology and published the first
weather forecasts

Fitzroys Offer
Fitzroy was given command of HMS Beagle to complete the
survey of the South American coast started some years
before
He was worried that the length and distance from home
would take its toll on his mental health and wanted a social
companion
He was looking for a gentleman geologist/naturalist who
could pay his own expenses to take part in the voyage
Darwins tutor at Cambridge suggested him and his uncle
Joseph Wedgewood persuaded his father to let him go

The Voyage of HMS Beagle

Dec 1831 to Oct 1836

The Galapagos Islands

Giant Tortoises

San Cristobel

North Isablea

South Isablea

Darwins Finches

Coral Islands

Return to England
On his return to England Darwin settled to analyzing his
notes and specimens with the help of others in
particular Sedgwick, Robert Owen and John Gould
Gould identified the birds collected in the Galapagos as
finches not the mixture of families Darwin had identified
Fossils collected in Patagonia were identified by Owen as
extinct mega-fauna
He married his cousin Emma Wedgwood and Settled in
Gower Street, London before moving to Down House in
Kent.

Malthus: An Essay on the Principle

of Population

Reverend Thomas
Malthus

Population
Food Supply

Racing
Homer

English

Pigeon Fancying
Frillback

Fantail

Artificial Selection
The fancy pigeons like breeds of dog and farm
animals and plants are breed to give desired
characteristics
Individuals showing the wanted feature well and few
unwanted features are crossed
In the next generation the offspring showing the
wanted features best are again crossed
Over time the wanted feature (fan like tail, large crop,
speed) will increase and the breed changes form

The Struggle for Existence

To keep the numbers of a population stable
each adult pair needs to raise 2 offspring to
adulthood in their lifetime
Each breeding pair actually produces many
more offspring than this yet population
numbers remain more or less stable
Most of the offspring die of starvation, disease
or predation before they reach maturity
Only a small number survive and breed in their
own turn

Natural Selection
All individuals show some variation from the species
norm
Most individuals die before reaching adulthood
Those showing most adaptation to the environment
are most likely to survive and breed
Over time the species will change to become more
adapted to the environment
So if the environment changes the species change
to make its self more suited to the new conditions

Adaptive Radiation

Blistering Barnacles
Darwin wanted
to write a
description of all
barnacle species
living and
extinct in the
world
After 10 years of
work he finished
a description of
all the barnacles
living in the
waters of Great
Britain and some

Alfred Russell Wallace

Born 1823 to a relatively poor
family
Worked as a surveyor in the
1840s before becoming a
professional naturalist
Travelled widely in South
America and the Malay
Archipelago
Became an expert on the
geographical distribution of

Animal Collecting
Wallace made his living by collecting animal
specimens for sale to collectors
From 1848 to 1852 he travelled in the Amazon
Basin collecting animals but lost most of his
specimens when his homeward bound ship sank
From 1854 to 1862 he undertook a second
expedition to the east indies (Malaysia and
Indonesia)

The Wallace Line

In the
North
West the
fauna is
Asian
e.g.
tigers,
elephants
and
orangoutangs
To the
south
west it is
Australian

Change of Forms
Published On the Law which has Regulated the
Introduction of New Species in 1855
This outlined some work on distribution of species
and suggested new species arose close to
existing ones
In 1857 or 1858 during a bout of Malaria in the
Borneo jungle Wallace re-read Malthus and
developed a theory of natural selection

Wallaces Letter
In early 1858 Wallace wrote to Darwin proposing a
mechanism for the emergence of new species and
asked for Darwins comments
if Wallace had my MS. sketch written out in 1842, he
could not have made a better short abstract! Even his
terms now stand as heads of my chapters. Please
return me the MS., which he does not say he wishes
me to publish, but I shall, of course, at once write and
offer to send to any journal.
Charles Darwin in a letter to Charles Lyell
Two papers one by Wallace and one by Darwin were read
to the Linnaean Society in July 1858 with an introduction
by Lyell and Huxley

On the Origin of Species by Natural

Selection
Darwin wrote the Origin between July1858 and
March as a short abstract of his ideas
1250 copies of the first edition were sold on or
before the day of publication, the 3000 copy
second edition was sold out before the end of
January 1860
The book describes artificial and natural selection
and some of the main lines of evidence Darwin
had for developing the theory

What is a Species?
A species is a group of individuals with a common
form and life style
Each species occupies an ecological niche
Individuals of a species can breed with other
individuals of the same species and produce fertile
offspring
A species is a population of individuals that can and
do interbreed with each other
Populations that stop interbreeding can become
separate species

Natural Selection
Only individuals well adapted to the
environment survive
Only traits carried by surviving individuals
are present in the next generation
Over time individuals become more
adapted to their environment and change
form to become new species

Common Descent
All living things descend from previous living
species
As time passes species change into one other
forms
All living things come from 1 single common
ancestor and this form has been altered by
variation and natural selection to give the adapted
forms we see around us
It is this common descent that has given rise to
the common features that make classification
possible

The Age of the Earth

Landscapes are formed by constant simple
geological processes going on today
These include sedimentation, erosion, volcanism
and earthquakes
While climate and events may change the
processes do not
To form the structures in the landscape takes
time and so the earth is 100s of millions of years
old at least (actually around 4.5 billion years old)

The Fossil Record

Structural Homology

Embryology
Darwin

Photo

Human

Dog

Cat

Evolution of
the Eye
A Sequence of
intermediate forms
leading to the
structure of the eye
Each form can be
found in different
extant species

Fitness
Fitness is a measure of how well an individual is
adapted to its environment
This has nothing to do with strength but is
measured by reproductive success and survival
The longer you live and the more children, nieces
and nephews the greater your fitness to the
environment

The Oxford Debate: Survival of the

Fittest

Samuel Wilberforce,
Bishop of Oxford

Thomas Henry Huxley

The Descent of Man

light will be thrown on the origin of man and
his history
C. Darwin, Origin of Species 1859

Sexual Selection
An Individual that survives 2 years and has 10
offspring is fitter than one that survives 10 years
and has 2 offspring
As well as competing for resources individuals also
compete for mates
Males can evolve a feature solely because females
find it attractive and visa versa

The Problem of Inheritance

If natural selection is to produce evolution variation
must be inherited
Also a small amount of variation must be able to
spread through a population
An even mixing of characteristics will lead to
variation being averaged out of a population not
retained

Neo-Darwinism
The combination of mendelian population genetics
with natural selection is known as the neoDarwinian synthesis
This combination is the main current theory of
evolution and we will look at these ideas and the
evidence for them in the next lecture