Evolution.

SEPUP Activity 4, Darwin and the theories of Development.

*Biological evolution, or evolution: is a change in the genetic composition of a

population that gives rise to new life forms from common ancestors.
Before Darwin:
*Aristotle (384–322 bce), viewed species as fixed (unchanging). Through
his observations of nature, Aristotle recognized certain
“affinities” among organisms. He concluded that life-
forms could be arranged on a ladder, or scale, of
increasing complexity, later called the scala
naturae (“scale of nature”). Each form of life, perfect
and permanent, had its allotted rung on this ladder.
*One such scientist was Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778),
a Swedish physician and botanist who sought to
classify life’s diversity, in his words, “for the greater
glory of God.” In the 1750s, Linnaeus developed the
two-part, or binomial, format or naming
species (such as Homo sapiens for humans) that is
still used today. In contrast to the linear hierarchy of
the scala naturae, Linnaeus adopted a nested
classification system, grouping similar species into
increasingly general categories.
For example, similar species are grouped in the same
genus, similar genera (plural of genus) are grouped in
the same family, and so on.
*Among other sources of information, Darwin drew from the work of scientists
studying fossils, the remains or traces of organisms from the past. Many fossils are
found in sedimentary rocks formed from the sand and mud that settle to the bottom
of seas, lakes, and swamps. New layers of sediment cover older ones and compress
them into superimposed layers of rock called strata (singular, stratum). The
fossils in a particular stratum provide a glimpse of some of the organisms that
populated Earth at the time that layer formed.
Later, erosion may carve through upper (younger) strata, revealing deeper (older)
strata that had been buried.
Paleontology, the study of fossils, was developed in large part by* French
scientist Georges Cuvier (1769–1832). In examining strata near Paris, Cuvier noted
that the older the stratum, the more dissimilar its fossils were to current life-
forms. He also observed that from one layer to the next, some new species
appeared while others disappeared. He inferred that extinctions must have been a
common occurrence, but he staunchly opposed the idea of evolution. Cuvier
speculated that each boundary between strata represented a sudden catastrophic
event, such as a flood, that had destroyed many of the species living in that area.
Such regions, he reasoned, were later repopulated by different species immigrating
from other areas.
In contrast to Cuvier’s emphasis on sudden events, other scientists suggested that
profound change could take place through the cumulative effect of slow but
continuous processes.
*In 1795, Scottish geologist James Hutton (1726–1797) proposed that Earth’s
geologic features could be explained by gradual mechanisms, such as valleys being
formed by rivers. The leading geologist of Darwin’s time Charles Lyell (1797–
1875), incorporated Hutton’s thinking into his proposal that the same geologic
processes are operating today as in the past, and at the same rate.
Hutton’s and Lyell’s ideas strongly influenced Darwin’s thinking. Darwin agreed
that if geologic change results from slow, continuous actions rather than from
sudden events, then Earth must be much older than the widely accepted age of a
few thousand years. It would, for example, take a very long time for a river to
carve a canyon by erosion. He later reasoned that perhaps similarly slow and subtle
processes could produce substantial biological change. However, Darwin was not
the first to apply the idea of gradual change to biological evolution(gradualism).
*In the early 1800s, naturalists had begun to consider the idea that species of living
things are not fixed, a revolutionary idea at the time. Instead, they suspected,
species have undergone changes ever since they first evolved on earth.
*In France, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was one of the naturalists considering changes
in species. In 1809 (the year Charles Darwin was born), Lamarck published
Zoological Philosophy, a book that presented one of
the first theories of evolution. He suggested that
when the environment changes, organisms must
also change in response if they are to survive. He
favored a mechanism for evolution proposed by
earlier scientists that was based on use and disuse
(his hypothesis has largely been rejected by modern
genetics.) of organs He stated that, for example, if
giraffes continually stretched their necks to reach
high treetops for food, their necks could lengthen over their lifetime, and their
offspring could inherit these changes. If an animal did not use a particular organ,
the organ would become smaller from one generation to the next or disappear
entirely. Lamarck’s theory would say, for example, that because snakes could
slither through the grass, the legs of snake species gradually became smaller and
smaller.
*Today, his theory is not accepted because scientists’ investigations of heredity
have shown that acquired characteristics (characteristics that develop during life,
that are not inherited), Although the name "Lamarck" is now associated with a
discredited view of evolution, the French biologist's notion that organisms inherit
the traits acquired during their parents' lifetime had common sense on its side. In
fact, the "inheritance of acquired characters" continued to have supporters well into
the 20th century.

*Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) is one of the best-known early evolutionists.

Unlike Darwin, Lamarck believed that living things evolved in a continuously
upward direction, from dead matter, through simple to more complex forms,
toward human "perfection." Species didn't die out in extinctions, Lamarck claimed.
Instead, they changed into other species. Since simple organisms exist alongside
*complex "advanced" animals today, Lamarck thought they must be continually
created by spontaneous generation. Unlike Darwin, Lamarck held that evolution
was a constant process of striving toward greater complexity and perfection

Weismann destroyed Lamarck theory:

*germ-plasm theory of inheritance
Weismann predicted that in sexual reproduction, a form of reproduction involving
two parents, the number of idants normally present in cells must reduce to half, so
that, of the idants in the cells of an offspring, half came from the mother's germ
cell and half came from the father's germ cell.
disproved Lamarck’s theory of use and disuse.
Darwin’s Observations on the Galapagos Islands:
*In 1831, join the voyage of the HMS Beagle, a survey ship that would travel all
over the world, Fitzroy accepted the 22-year-old Darwin on board.
While at sea Darwin read the first volume of Charles Lyell’s recently published
*Principles of Geology. The main point of Lyell’s book was that the geology of the
earth in its present form helps explain the geologic past. Lyell proposed that
largescale geologic change results from small changes over extremely long periods
of time. For example, the slow erosion of rock over many years can lead to the
formation of a canyon.
In addition, he, as had others, thought that the earth was much older than several
thousand years.
*Over the five years of the voyage, Darwin observed and collected a variety of
animals, plants, and fossils to bring back to England. His work on the voyage
included explorations on land in South America where he noted geological
formations, and several weeks studying the organisms on the Galapagos Islands,
those 10 islands, as Darwin observed, were all formed from volcanic rocks and all
had similar soil, climates, elevation, and size. He also noticed that the plants and
animals on the islands had adapted to all kinds of environments.
*Darwin made extensive observations of the Galapagos plants and animals.
He wondered why the species on each island differed from each other but were
much more like each other than species elsewhere.
*Among the organisms Darwin brought back to England were the now-famous
Galapagos finches. Darwin had collected a number of birds that he assumed were
blackbirds, grosbeaks, and woodpeckers because they varied so much in beak
structure, tails, and body form. Showing his collection to England’s bird experts,
he was surprised to learn that his birds were all members of 13 closely related
species of finches.
*He had seen one group of finches often climbing around the flowers of cactus
trees, while another group tended to flock together and feed on seeds on the
ground. For each species of finch, the birds’ beaks were suited to the food sources
available on the island they lived on. Although Darwin examined many other
groups of organisms,
including mockingbirds and tortoises, the finches became best known because they
showed how a diverse group of species could evolve through natural selection
from a common ancestor that originated on the mainland.

Variety and Artificial Selection through Breeding:

Back in England as he thought about the patterns of organisms on
*From pigeon breeders he learned that selective breeding could be used to produce
a great variety of pigeons in a relatively short period of time. A breeder would cage
two individual pigeons with a desirable trait together to mate in order to obtain
offspring that inherited and reinforced that trait. These improved offspring were
then selected for further breeding, and the breeder would continue the process for
generations. Meanwhile, another breeder would be mating his pigeons for another
desirable trait. People had applied such artificial selection for thousands of
years in breeding better crops and animals. Dogs, cows, corn, and tulips are just
some of the organisms modified by humans through selective breeding.
*Darwin became so fascinated with this that he began to breed pigeons at his
home. In observing characteristics of tails, heads, beaks, and necks, he was once
again astonished by the variety he could bring out among the pigeons, an
astonishment similar to when he understood the variations among finches on the
Galapagos.
*Darwin’s breakthrough came in reasoning that the selection produced artificially
by humans might occur in all sorts of species, as a result of changes in the
environment. Also in his autobiography he wrote:
*In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I
happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well
prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on
from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once
struck me that under these circumstances favorable variations would tend to be
preserved, and unfavorable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the
formation of new species.
*Thomas Malthus:
a British economist who proposed in an essay in 1798 that human population
growth will always exceed the amount of food available to feed the population,
Malthus argued that the geometric growth of the human population would lead
to starvation and suffering by the poorer members of society. He suggested that
individuals in the population compete with each other for limited resources.
Those successful in competing would survive, while those who failed were
doomed to starvation. The Origin of Species:
Darwin spent the next 20 years gathering more facts for the theory of natural
selection. While he planned to write a large work on the theory, he spent time on
many other projects as well.
*In 1858, however, another world-traveling naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, sent
Darwin a summary of his own theory of evolution in which he drew conclusions
similar to Darwin’s. Wallace requested that Darwin, who was a respected
naturalist, send the paper to the Linnaean Society, a group of influential naturalists
of the day. Through Lyell and others, a meeting of the Linnaean Society was
organized to present both men’s work together.
* Like fellow naturalist and colleague Charles Darwin, Wallace traveled the
world, observing and collecting samples of species. He traveled to Brazil and
various islands of the Malay Archipelago that make up modern-day Indonesia and
the Philippines, where he collected thousands of specimens of insects, birds, and
other animals. After four years in Brazil, Wallace fell ill and decided to return
home to England. But 26 days into their voyage home, his ship caught fire and
sank in the Atlantic. Wallace’s team and the ship’s crew spent 10 days adrift
before being picked up by a passing ship, and all of Wallace’s notes and samples
were lost at sea.
* Despite this setback, Wallace set off on another voyage in 1854 to Southeast
Asia to collect more samples. By 1855, his observations led him to the conclusion
that living things change over long periods of time—they evolve. However, he
could not explain how or why they evolve(as when the environment change the
animal change )Then, in 1858, while still in Southeast Asia, he became ill again.
Wracked with a fever, he suffered hallucinations, but when the fever broke, the
answer came to him—species evolve by adapting to their environment!
Wallace knew Darwin was working on similar research. In 1858, he sent Darwin a
letter outlining his ideas about evolution. The two collaborated on a scientific
paper, discussing their evidence for natural selection and evolution.

*Soon after, in 1859, Darwin published his thorough and detailed explanation of
natural selection in his book On the Origin of Species. In On the Origin of
Species, Darwin laid out his evidence that all living species change through a
series of steps, as characteristics slightly more favorable to surviving in a
particular environment are preserved successively over time. An
accumulation of enough of these changes would give rise to a new species.
*In addition to recognizing that all species diverge and change through evolution,
Darwin proposed that these changes take place through what he called natural
selection. He reasoned that if breeders could use artificial selection to create
dramatic changes in species over short periods of time, natural processes could
lead to change over very long periods. As Darwin saw it, natural selection
explained the differences in closely related species. The Galapagos finches
provided an example of how an original small population could evolve into a
number of different species. Because they are most closely related to South
American finches, it appears that these finches first arrived on the islands from the
mainland.
perhaps as a result of storms that blew them off course. Likely scattered among the
10 islands, individuals in the population encountered new food sources and
habitats, which differed from island to island. The beaks of individual finches from
the mainland would have had a certain amount of variation in their shapes and
sizes. Those individuals with beaks that could feed easily on available food sources
survived longer, reproducing more offspring that inherited the genes for similar
traits. Over an unknown number of generations, this resulted in finches with
different beaks in different habitats, depending on whether the type of food
available was seeds, insects, or fruit. Long, pointed beaks, for example, were well
suited for digging seeds out of cactus fruits.
Short, wide beaks were best for eating seeds from the ground. Thin, sharp beaks
were suited to catching insects. At the same time, other changes in characteristics,
such as body size, tail shape, and behavior were also accumulating in the
populations. Gradual accumulations of these changes through
natural selection eventually led to the separation of a
population into different species. Alfred Russel Wallace
considered the co-discoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace is also
known for his accomplishments in the field of biogeography. One of his key
contributions was to divide the world into seven major biogeographical
areas. The name “Wallace’s Line” was given to the divide between Southeast
Asia and the Australia and New Zealand region because the plants and
animals in the two areas were very different even though they were
geographically close to one another.
In the Descent of Man, published in 1871, Darwin identified another mechanism
for evolution, which he called sexual selection. Sexual selection refers to
differential reproduction resulting from variation in the ability to obtain mates. For
example, female peacocks tend to preferentially mate with males that have showy
tail feathers.
Darwin distinguished this type of selection from natural selection because these
features are not necessarily adaptive for the conditions of life; they promote
reproductive success in a very different way that in some cases may even conflict
with natural selection. For example, the showy tail display of a male peacock
attracts potential female mates leading to increased reproduction, but may also
attract predators, reducing survival.
His breakthrough came in putting these ideas together and providing a detailed
description for how natural selection and sexual selection could give rise to
diverse life forms from common ancestors. Since its development, a large body
of evidence has been gathered to support the theory of natural selection, which
provides a logical, scientifically tested explanation for the evolution of life.
Notes from solving:
1)Lamarck thought that the differences in traits of organisms are a result of
a) increases in population size.
b) the actions of organisms as they change a body structure.
c) an unchanging local environment.
d) the natural variations already present within the population of organisms.
2) Which observation led Wallace to conclude that all species are connected in a
tree of life?
a) Around the globe, the more similar two species are, the closer to each other
they tend to live.
b) Different species migrated from Australia to the islands of the Malay
Archipelago.
c) Both the butterflies and the birds he studied had wings.
d) Darwin had published the same ideas in On the Origin of Species.
3) Darwin applied the phrase “survival of fittest”.
4)while Wallace’s ideas about natural selection were inspired by what he observed
on the Malay Archipelago.