Most Essential Learning

Competency:
 1. Explain how fossil records, comparative anatomy, and genetic information
provide evidence for evolution (S10LT-IIIf-39);
 2. Explain the occurrence of evolution (S10LT-IIIg-40); and
 3. Write an essay on the importance of adaptation as a mechanism for the
survival of species.
Objectives:
At the end of the module, you should be able to:

1. Understand how evolution is being studied from the fossil record and molecular data.
2. Give the importance of understanding the origin of life.
3. Explain why reproduction, variation, and adaptation are necessary for the survival of
species; and
4. Discuss how natural selection promotes expression and propagation of traits and
species that adapt with the changing environment.
 Theories of Evolution

• What are the theories involved in evolution?

• Who was Charles Darwin?
• How does Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural
selection explain how species change over time?
• How are adaptations evidence of natural selection?
 Theories of Evolution

 There is a familiar saying that

“nothing is permanent in this
world, but the only thing
permanent is change”.
 This saying has a deeper
meaning in the study of
evolution. As Darwin came to
think of his early involvement of
evolution brought by Darwin
realizing that men look similar to
apes, Evolution has caused
change in the appearance and
behavior of organisms.
 Jean Baptiste de Lamarck was the
first evolutionist to believe that
organisms change over time. Using
fossil records as a guide, Lamarck
was able to develop three theories;
 The Theory of Need which states
that organisms change in response to
their environment.
 Their ability to survive helped them
develop characteristics necessary for
them to adapt in a given
environment.
 For example, Lamarck believed that
elephants all used to have short
trunks. When there was no food or
water that they could reach with
their short trunks, they stretched
their trunks to reach the water and
 Theory of Use and Disuse; which according to Lamarck, organs not in use will
disappear while organs in use will develop.
 Lamarck believed that giraffes before have short necks, but because of the need
to survive and in order to reach tall trees for food, they kept stretching their necks
until these became longer and able to reach taller trees.

 These acquired characteristics were believed to be inherited by their

offspring and propagated by the next generation of giraffes. Lamarck
called it as The Theory of Acquired Characteristics.

The question is, if you change the color of your hair

from black to blond, do you think your child can
inherit the blond color of your hair? A young lady
keeps on using whitening soap and becomes fair?
Can her child inherit her acquired fairness?
 Charles Darwin
 A naturalist is a person who studies plants
 Dates: February 12th,
and animals by observing them.
 Charles Darwin was an English naturalist
1831
who, in the mid-1800s, developed a theory of  Captain: Charles Darwin
how evolution works.
 Ship: H.M.S. Beagle
 Destination: Voyage
around the world.
 Findings: evidence to
propose a revolutionary
hypothesis about how life
changes over time

Voyage of the Beagle

 Ideas that shaped Darwin’s Thinking

Lamarck’s Theory of
 James Hutton:  Charles Lyell Evolution
 1795 Theory of Geological  Book: Principles of  Tendency toward
change
Geography Perfection(Giraffe
 Forces change earth’s  Geographical features can necks)
surface shape
be built up or torn down  Use and Disuse (bird’s
 Changes are slow  Darwin thought if earth using forearms)
 Earth much older than changed over time, what  Inheritance of Acquired
thousands of years about life
Traits
?
 Patterns of Diversity
Darwin visited Argentina and Australia which had similar grassland
ecosystems.
 those grasslands were inhabited by very different animals.
 neither Argentina nor Australia was home to the sorts of animals
that lived in European grasslands.

Darwin posed challenging questions.

 Why were there no rabbits in Australia,
despite the presence of habitats that
seemed perfect for them?
 Why were there no kangaroos in
England?
 Living Organisms and Fossils
 Darwin collected the preserved remains of ancient organisms,
called fossils.
 Some of those fossils resembled organisms that were still alive
today.
 Others looked completely unlike any creature he had ever seen.

As Darwin studied fossils, new questions

arose.
 Why had so many of these species
disappeared?
 How were they related to living species?
 The Galapagos Island
 The smallest, lowest islands were
hot, dry, and nearly barren-Hood
Island-sparse vegetation
 The higher islands had greater
rainfall and a different assortment
of plants and animals-Isabela-
Island had rich vegetation.
 Darwin was fascinated in particular
by the land tortoises and marine
iguanas in the Galápagos.
 Giant tortoises varied in predictable
ways from one island to another.
 The shape of a tortoise's shell
could be used to identify which
island a particular tortoise
inhabited.
Animals found in the Galapagos

 Land Tortoises

 Darwin Finches

 Blue-Footed
Booby

 Marine Iguanas
Darwin’s Finches
 The things to remember
The Journey Home are:
 According to Darwin, giraffe species originally
had varying neck lengths but natural selection
 DarwinObserved that favored the survival of giraffes with longer
necks that could feed on taller trees that were
characteristics of available. Giraffes with short neck were
many plants and eliminated due to lack of accessible food supply.

animals vary greatly  Fifty years after Lamarck’s Theory of Use

among the islands and Disuse, Charles Darwin suggested the
Theory of Natural Selection, after his
 Hypothesis: voyage to the Galapagos Island in HMS
Beagle. He was fascinated by the diversity
Separate species may of organisms he found along the journey.
have arose from an  In Galapagos Island, he observed that finch
original ancestor species have different beak structures for
different food types. The abundance of
certain finch species in an island was
somehow related to the type of available
Natural Selection
 NaturalSelection: Organisms that
are best adapted to an
environment survive and reproduce
more than others
 Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection
occurs in four steps:
 Overproduction
 Variation
 Competition
 Selection
 1. Overproduction
 Each species produces more offspring that can
survive

2. Variation
 Each individual has a unique combination of inherited
traits.
 Adaptation: an inherited trait that
increases an organism’s chances of
survival
What adaptations
do you see?
Why is Variation Important?

 Because the environment changes.

 The more variation within a species, the more likely
it will survive
 EX:
If everyone is the same, they are all vulnerable to the
same environmental changes or diseases
 Themore variation of types of species in an habitat,
the more likely at least some will survive
 EX: Dinosaurs replaced by mammals
Which community has a better chance
of surviving a natural disaster?

Community A Community B
3. Competition

 Individuals COMPETE for limited resources:

 Food, water, space, mates
 Natural selection occurs through “Survival of the
fittest”
Fitness: the ability to survive
long enough to reproduce
 Not all individuals survive to adulthood
4. Selection
 The individuals with the best traits / adaptations
will survive and have the opportunity to pass on
it’s traits to offspring.
 Natural
selection acts on the phenotype (physical
appearance), not the genotype (genetic makeup)
 Ex:When a predator finds its prey, it is due to the
prey’s physical characteristics, like color or slow
speed, not the alleles (BB, Bb)
Descent with Modification

 Descent
with Modification – each living species has
descended, with changes, from other species over
time.

 Common Descent – all living organisms are related

to one another
Population Growth Publication of Origin of Species

 RusselWallace
wrote an essay
summarizing
evolutionary
change from his
 Thomas Malthus-19th
field work in
century English economist Malaysia
 If population grew (more  Gave
Babies born than die) Darwin the
 Insufficient living space drive to publish his
 Food runs out findings
 Darwin applied this
theory to animals
Natural Selection &
Artificial Selection
Natural Selection Evolution by
Natural Selection
 Over time, natural selection
 Natural results in changes in
variation-- inherited characteristics of 
a population. These The Struggle for
differences among changes increase a species Existence-members
individuals of a fitness in its environment of each species have
species to compete for food,
shelter, other life
necessities
 Artificial
selection- nature  Survival of the
provides the Fittest-Some
variation among individuals better
different suited for the
organisms, and environment
humans select
those variations
 Summary of Darwin’s Theory
 Individuals in nature differ from one  Individuals best suited for the
another environment survive and
 reproduce most successful
Organisms in nature produce
more offspring than can survive,
and many of those who do not  Species change over time
survive do not reproduce.
 Because more organisms are  Species alive today descended
produce than can survive, each with modification from species
species must struggle for that lived in the past
resources
 Each organism is unique, each  All organisms on earth are
has advantages and united into a single family tree
disadvantages in the struggle for of life by common descent
existence