PROCESS OF

EVOLUTION
by Group 6!
 OBJECTIVES
01 Explain the process of 04 interpret and explain
Evolution the phylogenetic
tree;

02 Identify some scientist who 05 explain the importance of

contributed development of phylogenetic tree to evolutionary
evolutionary thoughts relationship of organisms;

03 compare Lamarckian and

describe how organisms may
Darwinian Evolution; 06
be related to one another by
their characteristics; and
 OBJECTIVES
classify the organisms with the same traits,
07 characteristics, and evolutionary relationship.
 PROCESS OF EVOLUTION
Charles Darwin formulated the theory of evolution by natural
selection in his book “On the Origin of Species” in 1859. According
to Darwin, Theory of Evolution refers to a change over time and the
process by which modern organisms have descended from ancient
organisms.
 PROCESS OF EVOLUTION
The basis for the modern theory of evolution was laid
during 1700s and 1800s. Charles Darwin sets sail on the
H.M.S. Beagle, a voyage that would provide him with vast
amounts of evidence that led to his theory of evolution.
 PROCESS OF EVOLUTION
Alfred Wallace writes Darwin, speculating on evolution by
natural selection, based on his studies of the distribution of
plants and animals. The French naturalist Jean-Baptiste
Lamarckwas among the first scientists to recognize that
living things have changed over time and that all species
were descended from other species.
 PROCESS OF EVOLUTION
Other scientists who contributed to evolutionary thought
were Carolus Linnaeus who formalized the binomial
nomenclature and Thomas Malthus who believed that
populations grow geometrically while resources slowly
decrease, leading to competition.
 MECHANISMS OF EVOLUTIONARY CHANGES

01
GENETIC DRIFT
02
GENE FLOW
03
MUTATION

04 05
NATURAL SELECTION NON-RANDOM MATING
 GENETIC DRIFT

is a change in the gene pool of a population due to chance.

Examples of genetic drift are bottleneck effect andfounder effect.
Bottleneck effect takes place when population decreases due to
various environmental factors such as fires, earthquakes, and
floods. The founder effect happens when a small population of
organisms separates from the larger group to invade a new area.
 GENE POOL

is described as the movement of genes from one

population to another. When this happens, there is
a tendency to increase the gene diversity in the
populations.
 MUTATION

occurs when there is a change in the

genetic makeup caused by environmental
stressors. This process expands the
diversity of organisms.
 NATURAL SELECTION

explains the difference in survival of an

individual and reproduction in a particular
environment.
 NONRANDOM MATING

increases the frequency of animals with

desirable traits. It causes evolution because it
intrudes the natural pool of gene variations.
LAMARCKIAN VS. DARWINIAN
EVOLUTION
- According to Lamarck’s Theory of Evolution, organisms change
during their lifetime to survive then pass these changes to their
offspring. On the other hand, Darwin’s theory involves natural
selection and struggle for existence. When an organism is fit and
can adapt to its environment, it has a better chance to survive and
more chance to reproduce.
LAMARCKIAN VS. DARWINIAN
EVOLUTION
- In 1835, when Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands, evidence has
been found to indicate that living things have changed gradually
during their natural history. The study of fossils as well as
biogeography, embryology, molecular evidence, and comparative
anatomy such as homologous structure, analogous structure and
vestigial structure provide evidence for evolution.
• The evolutionary history of a group of organisms is
called phylogeny from the Greek word phylon which
means “tribe” and genesis which means “origin”. Biologists
traditionally represent the genealogy or an organism’s line
of evolutionary development in phylogenetic trees, which
are diagrams that trace evolutionary relationships and
connections among organisms.
 INTRODUCTION
A phylogenetic tree can be read like a map of
evolutionary history. Rooted phylogenetic trees
have single lineage at the base representing a
common ancestor.
 INTRODUCTION
There are four groups of evolutionary trees namely
monophyletic, paraphyletic, polyphyletic and soft
polytomy. Monophyletic group is also called clade,
which shows one common ancestor and the all the
descendants share a common characteristic,
including their most recent ancestors.
 INTRODUCTION
Paraphyletic group refers to a group of organisms with
similar characteristics and originated from one recent
common ancestor, but shows different characteristics from
the other descendants of the recent ancestor. Polyphyletic
group includes organisms that originated from the same
ancient ancestors but not related at all in terms of their
most recent ancestors. Soft polytomyindicates more than
two immediate descendants.
EVOLUTION
- Descent with modification; this refers to the idea that living
species are descendants of ancestral species that were different
from the present-day ones (Campbell Biology 10th Edition
definition).

- Evolution in its contemporary meaning in biology refers to the

changes in the proportions of biological types in a population
over time (Millstein, 2017).
EVOLUTION
- Evolution is how the physical characteristics of
creatures change over time, new types of creatures
develop, and others disappear (Cambridge Dictionary
definition).
The Historical Developments of the
Theory of Evolution
- Most people believed in Creationism in the mid- 18th
century.

- Creationism is the religious belief that nature, such as the

universe, Earth, life, and humans, originated with
supernatural acts of divine creation (Gunn, 2004).
 CAROLUS VON LINNAEU

- Carolus von Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist, the Father of

Taxonomy, and who started the binomial system of
nomenclature, believed in species and fixity.

- His classification contributed much to the

acceptance of the concept of common descent
(Encyclopedia
Britannica, 2020).
 GEORGES CUVIER

- Georges Cuvier, a paleontologist and vertebrate zoologist,

proposed the Theory of Catastrophism in the late 18th century.
Catastrophism states that natural history has been punctuated
by catastrophic events that altered the way life developed
(Taylor, 2020). According to the theory, God created new sets of
life forms after each catastrophe.
 JAMES HUTTON AND
CHARLES LYELL
- Contrary to catastrophism is uniformitarianism, James Hutton and
Charles Lyell, both were Scottish
geologists, believed that Earth’s landscapes like mountains and
oceans formed over a long period of time through gradual
processes. This idea is known as Uniformitarianism, which means
massive geological changes occurred through a gradual
accumulation of small geological changes over a long time and not
in catastrophic events (Project EASE, 2008)..
JAMES HUTTON AND
CHARLES LYELL
 THOMAS MALTHUS

- Thomas Malthus, a political economist and has contributed to

the history of evolution, published a book,
“An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the
Future Improvement of Society.”

- In his book, he theorized that

populations would continue expanding until growth is
reversed or stopped by calamity, war, disease, or famine.
 JEAN-BAPTISTE DE LAMARCK

- Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck, a French zoologist, was the first to

propose the theory of evolution: Theory of Use and Disuse and
Theory of Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics called
Lamarckian Evolution/Lamarckism.

- The Lamarckian Theory of

Evolution believed that there is a reappearance in one or more
individuals in the next succeeding generations on a particular
characteristic.
 JEAN-BAPTISTE DE LAMARCK

- Lamarck proposed that acquired characteristics were

inheritable. For instance, the giraffe stretched their necks to reach
for food, and when this habit continued for a long time, the giraffe’s
front limbs and neck will gradually be grown longer, and these
characteristics may pass to the next generation (Encyclopedia
Britannica, 2017).
 JEAN-BAPTISTE DE LAMARCK

- Lamarck also believed that if an organ or a particular body part is

constantly use, this will develop better while the disuse organ results
to degeneration. An example is the evolution of snake.
According to him, the ancestors of snakes were limbed
and lizard-like. They lived in thick jungles.
Out of fear of mammals, these snakes started creeping on jungle
floor and living in narrow crevices or burrows.
For creeping among the vegetation or burrowing in the narrow
crevices, they stretched their body, which gradually became elongated.
The limbs were of no use and were a
hindrance in creeping and burrowing, thus gradually disappeared.
 CHARLES ROBERT
DARWIN

- Charles Robert Darwin, an English naturalist and a biologist,

whose scientific theory of evolution is natural selection and has
become the foundation of modern evolutionary studies explained
evolution through the Idea of Gradualism, the Idea of Multiplication
of Species, the Idea of Common Descent, and Natural Selection
(Encyclopedia Britannica,
2020).
 CHARLES ROBERT
DARWIN

- In the 1850s, Darwin wrote a controversial book called On

the Origin of Species. In this book, he theorized that species
evolve (or, as he put it, “descent with modification”), which
means that all living things can trace their descent to a
common ancestor (Khan Academy, n.d.) and that we are all
related to one another no matter how different we are.
 CHARLES ROBERT
DARWIN

- His Theory of Evolution never claimed that humans

directly came from apes; instead, humans and apes share a
common ancestor.

- Darwin was part of a survey expedition carried out by the

ship HMS Beagle and reached the Galapagos
Islands. While on his visit, he collected finches from the
different islands. Darwin noted that there were
similarities to one species he had previously found in South
America.
 CHARLES ROBERT
DARWIN
- However, he observed the difference
between the beaks and the species’ behavior, which he
found inspiring and thoughtprovoking. He realized that
the different islands that make up the archipelago were
home to similar but different species and he supposed
that these finches were all descendants of the same lineage
(Fourtané, 2018). Darwin noted that organisms had
unique features that enabled them to survive in diverse
environments.
 ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE

- Alfred Russel Wallace, a British naturalist who published a

paper that agreed conclusions with Darwin’s Theory
of Evolution through Natural Selection.

- Wallace’s observations led him to conclude that living things

change over a long period of time —they evolve (National
Geographic
Society, 2019).
 GREGOR MENDEL

- Our modern understanding of how traits may be inherited

through generations comes from the principles
proposed by Gregor Mendel in 1865 (Miko, 2008). Gregor Mendel
was a botanist and the Father of Modern Genetics.
His works with plants published,
setting the background for the basis of natural selection.

- However, Mendel’s work was not recognized because his

paper remained obscure for about 35 years, and in 1900 it was
rediscovered.
 HUGO DE VRIES, ER ICH
VON TSCHERMAK AND
ERICH VON TSCHERMAK

- In 1900, Dutch botanist and geneticist Hugo de Vries, German

botanist and geneticist Carl Correns, and Austrian botanist
Erich Von Tschermak independently reported results of
hybridization experiments similar to Mendel’s. However, each
later claimed not to have known of Mendel’s work while doing
their investigations (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2020).
 JAMES WATSON AND
FRANCIS CRICK

- In 1953, Cambridge University scientists James Watson

and Francis Crick announced that they had
determined the double-helix structure of DNA,
the molecule containing human genes,
from Rosalind Franklin’s works
(History.com Editors, 2009).
 ROSALIND FRANKLIN

- Rosalind Franklin, a British scientist, best known for her

contributions to discovering the molecular structure
of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) found in the chromosomes that
encode genetic information (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2020).
Figure 14. Living organisms sit like leaves at the tips of the branches of the Tree of Life. Living things share a
common ancestor. All organisms are related to one another no matter
how different they seem.

Body
Comparing Theories of Evolution;
Lamarck’s Vs Darwin’s Theory
 LAMARCK’S
THEORY
01
02
Proposed ancestor of giraffes has
characteristics of modern-day
okapi The giraffe ancestor lengthened
its neck by stretching to reach
tree leaves, then passed the
change on to offspring.
 DARWIN’S THEORY
01 02
Some individuals born Over many generations, longer-necked
individuals are more successful, perhaps
happing to have longer
because they can feed on taller trees. These
necks
successful individuals have more offspring and
pass the long-neck trait to them.
 MECHANISMS
OF EVOLUTION
NONRANDOM MATING
- Sexual selection is not merely by chance. Some physical and
behavioral characteristics influence an individual’s choice of
mate. For example, brown beetle preferentially mates with
beetle of their own color. In humans, tall men prefer tall
women rather than short women.
NONRANDOM MATING
- Another example of non-random mating is inbreeding,
which is commonly observed in plants and in some kinds of
animals. Inbreeding in plants is called self-fertilization.
Inbreeding can result in a population whose members are
alike in fitness, lifestyles, and appearance (Project EASE,
2008).
NONRANDOM MATING
MUTATION
- A mutation refers to the change in gene composition or
chromosome’s structure resulting to the change in
the organism’s appearance and other characteristics. There
are several agents for mutation (mutagens) like ultra violet
radiation and hazardous chemicals in the environment.
These mutagens can change the information stored in
individuals’ chromosomes or genes.
MUTATION
- Therefore, when mutation occurs, the appearance of
individuals in the population may change, and the gene
pool becomes different from the original population.
(Project EASE, 2008).
MUTATION
- A mutation could cause parents with bright green
coloration genes to have offspring with a gene for brown
coloration. Thus, it may make the genes for brown beetles
more frequent in the population (Understanding Evolution,
2008).
MUTATION
GENETIC DRIFT
GENETIC
- Genetic Drift refers to a change in the gene pool due to
chance alone. Unpredictable accidents or disasters
like earthquakes, floods, fires, and diseases can reduce
or eliminate certain traits in the population.
Genetic drift can have significant effects if a population is
sharply reduced in size by a natural disaster (bottleneck
effect) or when a small group splits off from the main
population to start a colony in another region (founder
effect).
GENETIC DRIFT
GENETIC
- For example, in one generation, two brown beetles have
four offspring that survive and reproduce.
Simultaneously, several green beetles were killed when
someone accidentally stepped on them and had no
offspring.
GENETIC DRIFT
GENETIC
- In this case, the next generation would have a
few more brown beetles than the previous generation —
but just by chance. These chance changes from
generation to generation are known as genetic Drift
(Understanding Evolution, 2008).
GENETIC DRIFT
GENE
GENE FLOW
- Gene flow, which is also called Migration, refers to
individuals’ movement and/or the genetic material they
carry from one population to another. When the migrating
individuals interbreed with the new population, they contribute
their genes to the gene pool of that local population,
therefore giving gene flow to this population.
GENE
GENE FLOW
- For example, some individuals from a brown beetle
population might migrate and join a green beetle
population. That would make brown coloration genes
more frequent in this green beetle population than they
were before the brown beetles migrated into it (Newey,
2018).
GENE FLOW
NATURAL SELECTION
NATURAL
- Natural Selection also referred to as “survival of the
fittest” is a theory which Darwin proposed for how
evolution comes about. It is the process by which
species adapt to their environment.
NATURAL SELECTION
NATURAL
- Nature will select which trait will survive and which will
not. The organisms with favorable traits or
characteristics, meaning those best suited in the
environment, will have a better chance of survival.
The survivors will pass on the favorable traits to their
offspring, and then after many generations, the
population will produce organisms with characteristics
that are very different from their ancestors
(Project EASE, 2008).
NATURAL SELECTION
NATURAL
- For instance, the green beetles are easier for the birds
to spot (and hence, eat). This only means that
brown beetles are a little more likely to survive and
produce offspring. The brown beetles will pass their
genes for brown coloration on to their offspring. Thus, in
the next generation, brown beetles are more common
than in the previous generation (Understanding
Evolution, 2008)
NATURAL SELECTION
NONRANDOM MATING
 WHAT IS
SPECIATION?
- Speciation is the formation of new species. A group within a species separates
from other members of its species and develops its own unique characteristics.
Evolution can lead to speciation (Project EASE, 2008).

- Galápagos finch is said to be one of the examples of speciation. Different species of

these birds live ondifferent islands in the Galápagos archipelago,
located in the Pacific Ocean of South America. The finches are
isolated from one another by the ocean.
 WHAT IS
SPECIATION?
- Over millions of years, these species developed a unique beak
specially adapted to the kinds of food it eats. Some finches have long, thin beaks
that can probe into cactusflowers without the bird being poked by the cactus spines.
Other finches have medium-size beaks that can catch and grasp insects. While other
finches have large, blunt beaks that can crack the hard shells of nuts andseeds.
Because they are isolated, the birds do not breed with another and have developed
into unique species with unique characteristics (Dunn, 1993).
SPECIATION
 WHAT IS
ADAPTATION?
- Adaptation is a process by which a species becomes fitted to its environment;
it results from naturalselection’s acting upon heritable variation over several
generations. Organisms are adapted to their environments in a great variety of
ways: in their structure, physiology, genetics, in their locomotion or
dispersal, in their means of defense and attack, in their reproduction and
development, and other aspects
(Encyclopedia Britannica, 2019).
 Figure 21. Philippine eagle inhabits tropical rain forests and are well-adapted to
life in dense foliage. It requires a large territory for hunting, and tallest trees, those
which emerge above the rain forest canopy,
for nesting. They have a very low reproduction rate, laying just one or two eggs
each year

ADAPTATION
 EVOLUTION:
SYSTEMATICS
KEY CONCEPTS
NAMING ORGANISMS
- Biologists have identified about 1.8
million species of extant (currently living)
organisms and estimate that several million
more remain to be discovered. To study
life, we need a system for organizing,
naming, and classifying its myriad forms.
SYSTEMATICS TAXONOMY HOMOLOGY
a subspecialty of systematics, is the presence in two or more
is the field of biology
the science of naming and species of a trait derived from
that studies the
classifying organisms. The goal of a recent common ancestor,
diversity of organisms systematics is to determine implies evolution from a
and their evolutionary evolutionary relationships, or common ancestor (Solomon,
relationships. phylogeny, based on share 2008).
characteristics.
NAMING ORGANISMS
- In the 18th century Carolus Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist,
developed a hierarchical system of naming and
classifying organisms that, with some modification, is still used
today. The narrowest category of classification is the species,
a group of organisms with similar structure, function, and
behavior. A species consists of one or more populations whose
members are capable of breeding with one another; in nature,
they do not breed with members of other species (Mackean,
2014).
NAMING ORGANISMS
- The Linnaean system of naming species is known as the
binomial system of nomenclature because each species is
assigned a two-part name. The first part of the name is the genus,
and the second part, the specific epithet, designates a particular
species belonging to that genus. The specific epithet is often a
descriptive word expressing some quality of the organism. It is
always used together with the full or abbreviated generic name
preceding it.
NAMING ORGANISMS
- The generic name’s first letter is always capitalized; the
specific epithet is generally not capitalized. Both names
are always italicized or underlined. For example, the
domestic dog, Canis familiaris(abbreviated C. familiaris),
and the timber wolf, Canis lupus (C. lupus), belong to the
same genus.
CLASSIFYING ORGANISMS
- Just as closely related species may be grouped in a
common genus, related genera can be grouped in a more
inclusive group, a family. Families are grouped into orders,
orders into classes, and classes into phyla (sing., phylum).
Biologists group phyla into kingdoms, and kingdoms are
assigned to domains.
CLASSIFYING ORGANISMS
- Each formal grouping at any given level is a taxon (pl., taxa).
Note that each taxon is more inclusive than the taxon below it.
Together they form a hierarchy ranging from species to domain.
Consider a specific example. The family Canidae, which includes
all doglike carnivores (animals that eat mainly meat), consists of
12 genera and about 34 living species. Family Canidae, along
with family Ursidae (bears), family Felidae (catlike animals), and
several other families that eat mainly meat, are all placed in
order Carnivora
CLASSIFYING ORGANISMS
- Order Carnivora, order Primates (to which chimpanzees and
humans belong), and several other orders belong to class
Mammalia (mammals). Class Mammalia is grouped with
several other classes that include fishes, amphibians, reptiles,
and birds in subphylum Vertebrata. The vertebrates belong to
phylum Chordata, which is part of kingdom Animalia. Animals
are assigned to domain Eukarya.
ANCESTRY OF ORGANISMS
- Modern biologists link classification with
evolution. Their goal is to reconstruct
phylogeny (literally, “production of phyla”),
the evolutionary history of a group of
organisms from a common ancestor. As they
determine evolutionary relationships among
and between species and higher taxa,
systematists build classifications based on
common ancestry
ANCESTRY OF ORGANISMS
- Consequently, systematics reflects the
integration of all evolutionary processes
and evolutionary evidence and thus is at
the center of how we understand and
explain the nonrandom occurrence and
relationships of lifeforms on Earth.
ANCESTRY OF ORGANISMS
- Systematists construct phylogenetic
trees to graphically represent the
evolutionary history of a group of species.
We can construct a type of phylogenetic
tree called a cladogram to illustrate the
evolutionary relationships among groups
of organisms as given below.
ANCESTRY OF ORGANISMS
- Molecular systematics is the use of
molecules to determine classification
systems and relationships (Smith,
2020). Early scientists use morphology
(overall appearance to identify and
classify organisms), this has been
important for the basic understanding
of organism relationships however
bears limitations.
ANCESTRY OF ORGANISMS
- One example is Homology which
assumes that two similar structures
have the same evolutionary origin. In
other words, the trait arose in an
ancestor and was passed down to its
descendants.
ANCESTRY OF ORGANISMS
- Molecular systematics is the discipline of
classifying organisms based on variations
in protein and DNA in order to make fine
taxonomic categorizations not solely
dependent on morphology (Weaver,
2020). DNA evolves by mutations being
contained in the DNA and fixed in
populations. This will start a deviation of
DNA sequences in various species.
THANK
YOU!
Do you have any questions?
BY GROUP 6