Darwin Day

Start:

  • Darwin was born 2/12/1809 and died April 19, 1882

  • Darwin is best known for writing On The Origins of Species (11/24/1859)

Speaker 1 (Linda Spurlock) : Darwin as a Young Man: The South American Adventures

  • The artist is Anthony Smith, who had always been fascinated with Darwin, and studied evolutionary theory at Christ’s College at the University of Cambridge

    • Statue is reading Paleys theology, has beadle with him

  • Darwin was not a serious student at Cambridge. Disliked many subjects and did not graduate with honors

  • Sedgwick mentored Darwin in geology but eventually, years later, became very critical of Darwin

  • Throughout his travels in South America, Darwin rode on horseback, mule, or walked. Always had a rifle and two pistols. Many South American Countries were in turmoil

  • The HMS Beagle’s first important stop…

  • On the Rio de Janeiro, he quickly left the town and went into the forest

    • “Twiners entwining with twiners- tresses like hair…”

  • Sent specimens off to Henslow and would sometimes have to wait 7 months to hear back. Some things got damaged in travel

  • Insects in these forests had many interesting adaptations

    • Phasmid stick insect

    • Harmless moth that looks like a squrpion

  • Rio Plata estuary

    • St. Elmo’s fire lit up the mastheads and the rigging of the ship

    • Nearby were flat plains

  • Every morning Darwin went out with a rifle to get fresh provisions for the ship, Deer, ostriches, wild pigs, armadillos.

  • Darwin really liked the gauchos

    • Traveling with the Gauchos on an 80-mile journey, after the had just brought down a cow and slaughtered it and it was time to camp

  • Darwin had heard that another Naturalist was in this region documenting bird diversity

  • Many were huge creatures

  • Unearthed a nearly perfect Scelidotherium. It was the size of a horse

    • ground sloth

  • Sir Richard Owen

    • Disagreed with Darwin on how evolution worked

  • Darwin finally heard back from …

    • Gained a name for himself

  • If he saw a mountain, he had to climb it

  • Captain FitzRoy and Darwin went off on their own, in small boats

  • A very grateful Captain FitzRoy named this mountain, near where they had camped, Mount Darwin

  • The Andes

    • Way up high finding sea shells

    • Loved being in high altitude

  • Chilean Earthquake

    • Felt it, was lying on the ground in an apple orchard

  • Went all the way up to Peru

    • Wrote how beautiful the women were

  • Overall only 18 month on the boat, mostly hiking and walking

Speaker 2 (Sangeet Lamichhaney): Bird Evolution and Genomics Undercovering the Hidden Wonders Beyond Darwin’s Theory

  • Evolution: Change in heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations

  • Why do we care about evolution?

    • Understand where life came from

    • Predict where life is going to

    • Understand biodiversity

  • Why do we care about biodiversity?

    • Humans are not the most important. We are a part of the ecosystem

  • Understanding Evolution

    • Why did it happen?

      • Natural selection

    • How did it happen?

      • We need to understand genes first

  • How do the genes look like?

    • DNA structure discovery

      • Watson and Crick, 1953

    • Over 50 years later found DNA sequence

      • Read letters of book = reading nucleotides in genes

  • To sequence human genome

    • cost ~ $3 billion

    • 15 years to complete

    • international collaboration

  • The “genomic revolution”

    • Evolution of DNA sequencing machines

      • Think computer evolution in size

    • Things got cheaper and cheaper

      • Genomic research is now not limited to big universities

  • Research focus in out lab

  • Darwin’s finches and evolution of beaks

    • large diversity

    • Beak as a tool box

    • Look at genomes to see how they explain the evolution

  • Go Beyond Darwin

    • Evolution occurs through millions of years and cannon be seen in one’s lifetime - Charles Darwin

    • BUT evolution in beak size within one year!!!

    • Strong selection on major genes associated with beak diversity and hybridization

Speaker 3: “Darwin, Deep Homology, and Developmental Evolution”

  • Evo-Devo investigates and compares embryonic development in different organisms to better understand how these processes evolved

  • Darwin’s Influence

    • Homology is evidence of common ancestry

    • Descent with modification

    • Importance of the embryo for supporting common ancestry and homology

  • Richard Owen defined homology as “the same organ in different animals under every variety of from and function”

    • Archetype is the divine concept for the anatomical makeup of a phylum of animals

  • Darwin defined homology as similarity in structure, anatomy and developmental correspondence between different species to be evidence of common descent

    • Archetypes are not ancestors

    • Body plan represents the evolutionarily shared and modified anatomical features of a group of animals

  • Before Darwin: Karl Ernest von Baer studied embryos of fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals and noted in early embryonic development, there is a remarkable similarity in structure.

    • Strongly opposed to Darwin’s theory of evolution

  • Camera eyes are a good example of convergent evolution, homoplasy