Introduction to Evolution

Natural Selection

• Individuals with certain heritable traits survive and reproduce at a higher rate than other individuals
• Natural selection increases the match between organisms and their environment over time
• If an environment changes over time, natural selection may result in adaptation to these new conditions and may give rise to new species
  • Note that individuals do not evolve; populations evolve over time
• Natural selection can only increase or decrease heritable traits that vary in a population
• Adaptations vary with different environments
• Why natural selection can’t fashion perfect organisms:
  • Selection can act only on existing variations
  • Evolution is limited by historical constraints
  • Adaptations are often compromises
  • Chance, natural selection, and the environment interact

Homology

• Homology: similarity resulting from common ancestry and is the result of divergent evolution.
• Homologous structures: anatomical resemblances that represent variations on a structural theme present in a common ancestor
• Convergent evolution: the evolution of similar, or analogous, features in distantly related groups
  • Convergent evolution does not provide information about ancestry
• Analogous traits arise when groups independently adapt to similar environments in similar ways
• Homologous genes: two genes derived from the same ancestral gene
  • Orthologs occur in separate species
• Molecular processes reveals molecular details of evolutionary change
• Two sequences may be similar, but not identical due to the independent accumulation of different random mutations

Darwin’s Observations of Nature

• There’s variability in traits within a population
• Traits are inherited from parent to child.
• No two of the same species are exactly alike even if they have the same parents
• All species are capable of reproducing beyond the support of the environment
• Many offspring do not survive due to limitation of the environment. \n

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