BIO1243

EVOLUTION
 EVOLUTION
•Course Concept (Evolution)
•To illustrate how plants and animals evolved, to explain the patterns of
plant and animal diversity and to explain why some animals have
become extinct.
•Content
1. Theories of evolution
2. Evidence for evolution
3. Micro-evolution
 Population genetics
Prescribed book:
• Solomon, E.P.; Berg, L.R. & Martin, D.W. 2011. Biology, Ninth
Edition. China Translation & Printing Services Limited. China.
•Recommended Text books:
1. Clegg CJ with Mackean DG 2000 Advanced Biology Principles &
Applications second edition

LECTURED BY: Dr. RAMOVHA L.I.

OFFICE No.: FFO35
 CLASS TEST:

• Test date: Watch the space

•To cover evolution slides and
adaptation slides
 WHAT IS EVOLUTION?

In biology evolution refers to the

development of life in the geological time.
Life has been transformed from its earliest
beginnings to the great diversity of forms
we know about today, living and fossilized.
 THE EVIDENCE

The evidence for evolution comes from

 studies of the geographical distribution and
 comparative anatomy of living things, of
fossil forms, of comparative biochemistry
and of systematics (classification), and also
from artificial selection.
 CHARLES DARWIN AND ALFRED
WALLACE
independently suggested that evolution
occurs by natural selection of chance
variations found among progeny that
compete to survive and reproduce.
 NEO-DARWINISM

• is a restatement of the concept of evolution

by natural selection in terms of Mendelian
and post-Mendelian genetics.
 EVIDENCE FOR SPECIATION

•comes from studies of change in

frequencies including emigration,
mutation, selective predation and
random genetic drift.
 CAN WE SAY EVOLUTION HAS
OCCURRED?
• If evolution has occurred, it may also
account for the origin of the vertebrates from
non-vertebrates, the sudden rise of flowering
plants, the origin of primates and humans,
the origin of life and the first cells.
 THE TERM EVOLUTION

•Comes from the Latin word evolvere,

meaning ‘to unroll’. It actually means ‘origin
from earlier forms’. It is used specifically
for the processes that have transformed life
on earth from its earliest beginnings to the
vast diversity of fossilized and living forms
we know of today.
 EVOLUTION – THE PROCESS
• Of gradual change beginning billions of years ago with a common
ancestor.
• It refers to the process by which life has changed through time.
• It explains why there are so many different kinds of organisms
• And why they give the appearance of being related to varying
degrees.
• It is the central unifying principle of modern biology
• and the one that ties the science together into a logical and
cohesive whole.
 The process continuation
• Throughout history most cultures have
produced explanations to account for the
origin and diversity of life
•There are two categories of explanations;
•those that are independent of natural laws and
involve a supernatural being, or creator(s),
•and those that are described by natural laws.
 SPECIAL CREATION
• Most societies have creation myths to explain these origins.
• (A myth is an unverifiable account of an historical event.).
• The stories vary but generally include the activities of some
supernatural being or beings that create organisms, usually in
their present form. eg. Haida raven myth, Navajo first man,
first woman myths, creation stories in genesis.
• These beliefs may or may not be true. Belief in them depends
entirely on faith rather than on observation and hypothesis
testing.
• They cannot be tested and thus are outside the view of
science.
 SPONTANEOUS GENERATION

• At one time it was widely held that organisms could arise

spontaneously from inanimate materials.
• That rats could arise from rags, and straw, and corn in a barn, or flies
could arise from decaying meat, without the benefit of parent rats or
flies, or flour beetles in a bin.
• It was disproved by Pasteur, et al.
• This idea is no longer held because it was falsified by scientific
inquiry.
• A hypothesis was formulated and tested and found to be false.
 THEORIES ……….
Lamarck and Acquired characteristics

• Lamarck observed the evidence of gradual change in organisms and

accounted for it by proposing an inner force in each individual that
compelled it to "better itself" so as to be better suited to its environment.
• He proposed that evolution occurs through a mechanism known as the
inheritance of acquired characteristics.
• In his explanation Lamarck saw each individual making some small
changes in its body to improve it.
• These changes were then passed on to the offspring of the individual.
• It has failed to survive this testing and is not accepted by modern
biologists. It has no genetic basis.
 Lamarck’s acquired characteristics
Acquired characteristics
 CHARLES DARWIN’s CONTRIBUTIONS
TO BIOLOGY
 During the voyage of the Beagle he accumulated geological and fossil
evidence that supported the idea that life changes in time.
 In the birds of Galapagos he found evidence of adaptive radiation (the
development from a single ancestral group of a variety of forms
adapted to various environments)
 A struggle for survival in the contest for food among all living things.
 All species show variation in time, where some variations confer
advantages in the struggle for existence.
 Organisms with favourable variations are more likely to breed and to
pass on their favouarable characteristics. In this way new species
arise from existing forms. 
 CHARLES DARWIN’S INFLUENCES
 Darwin’s theory provided a mechanism for evolution that
could be tested, and implied that evolution was still taking
place.
 That humans also share a common ancestor with apes –
that caused a controversy that has now largely subsided.
 That life itself has evolved from non-living, inorganic
resources of the earth, and today this is a field of
speculation and enquiry.
 Evolution by natural selection is an organizing principle of
modern biology.
 DARWIN AND WALLACE
• They proposed that evolution occurred through a
mechanism known as natural selection.
• This model is based on a number of observations and
the conclusions drawn from them.
• The most important are:
.

VARIATION
• No two individuals in a population are exactly alike.
• There is variation in all populations.
• Some of the variation is genetic and inheritable.
• Some of the variation is beneficial and some detrimental.
• Some variations are fit, unfit and some neutral
• All genetic variation arises by chance, not because of a
"need."
 EXCESS PROGENY
• All species have the capacity to produce far more offspring than can
survive to reproductive age.
 LIMITED RESOURCES
• Resources are finite and limiting.
•No habitat possesses sufficient resources to support all possible
offspring of any population.
•There must be competition among individuals in a population for the
limited resources.
• In the struggle between excess progeny for the limited resources, some
individuals will be successful in gathering enough resources to survive
to reproductive age and produce offspring of their own.
• Most individuals will not survive to reproductive age and will have no
offspring.
 ALLELE FREQUENCY
• If in one generation the ratio of unfit to fit alleles is 50:50.
• In the next generation it might be 40:60.
• This is a change in allele frequency.
• NOTE: The definition of "FIT" depends entirely on the environment
and can change.
• Variability arises by chance.
• Darwinian evolution is NOT goal directed.
 CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

• If the environment is not changing, the organism remains

adapted to it.
• The process will be most rapid when the environment is
changing
• And very slow in a static environment.
•This is because in a changing environment the definition of fit
and unfit are changing
•Whereas in a stable environment the definition remains the
same.
 Some examples of natural selection

•Evolution is a slow process difficult to observe but

there are over many examples of its occurrence in
historical time.
•It can happen rapidly in response to rapid changes in
the environment.
•One of the best is that of the peppered moth, Biston
betularia
 Biston betularia
• Biston exists in two forms (it is polymorphic), a pale wild
form and a dark, or melanistic, mutant form.
• The two forms are genetically determined by a single
locus that behaves according to simple Mendelian
principles
• This is the VARIATION necessary for natural selection to
operate on
• The variability is at a single locus (wing color locus) with
two alleles, wild and mutant
 Biston betularia continuation …
• Biston normally is active at night and spends the day resting on the
bark of trees.
• This bark is typically light colored, due especially to the growths of
lichens on the bark
• The pale form is colored almost exactly like the lichens on the bark
and is very difficult to see
• This cryptic coloration thus protects the moth from predation by
birds
• The melanistic moths on the other hand, are conspicuous against
the pale background and are easily seen by birds and then eaten
Example continuation
• There is thus selective pressure in favor of the pale genes and against the
melansitic allele
• Natural selection keeps the population well adapted to a stable
environment
• Natural selection operated against the melanistic form, which was unfit
• It did not disappear from the population because of continuous
mutations
• Beginning with the industrial revolution greater amounts of gasses and
soot were added to the atmosphere in the midlands and the lichens were
killed and the tree trunks darkened
 Example continuation
• With this CHANGE IN THE ENVIRONMENT came a change in
the definition of fitness.
• Now the melanistic allele is fit and the pale morph is unfit.
• Now birds cannot see the dark form but can easily see the pale
form
 Antibiotic and pesticide resistance
• Refer to your prescribed book for clarity
 Artificial selection
• This is identical to natural selection in that a selecting agent
defines what is fit and then operates on natural variability to
change allele frequency in a population
• Individuals that are fit are allowed to reproduce while preventing
the unfit from reproducing
• It differs from natural selection in that humans, not nature, are
the selecting agents and that
• It is goal-directed
 EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION
•Some types of evidence, such as fossils and
similarities between related living organisms, were
used by Darwin to develop his theory of natural
selection, and are still used today.
•Others, such as DNA testing, were not available in
Darwin's time, but are used by scientists today to
learn more about evolution.
 EVIDENCE FROM THE FOSSIL
RECORD
• Fossils are the preserved remains of once-living organisms
• Fossils are created when three events occur:
• First, the organism must become buried in sediment;
• then, the calcium in bone or other hard tissue must
mineralize;
• and, finally, the surrounding sediment must eventually
harden to form rock
 DATING OF ROCKS
• By dating the rocks in which fossils occur, we can get an accurate idea
of how old the fossils are
• In Darwin's day, rocks were dated by their position with respect to one
another (relative dating); rocks in deeper strata are generally older
• Today, rocks are dated by measuring the degree of decay of certain
radioisotopes contained in the rock (absolute dating)
• the older the rock, the more its isotopes have decayed
• Because radioactive isotopes decay at a constant rate unaltered by
temperature or pressure, the isotopes in a rock act as an internal clock,
measuring the time since the rock was formed
 EVIDENCE FROM COMPARATIVE ANATOMY

• Comparative anatomy is the discipline of biology that compares the

anatomy of animals to reveal relationships and common ancestry
• The existence of similarities in anatomical structure is taken as evidence of
descent from a common ancestor.
• Organs in different animals that are derived from an organ in a common
ancestor are said to be HOMOLOGOUS structures
•Vestigial organs: Some organisms have structures or organs that seem to
serve no useful function. For example, humans have a tailbone at the end of
the spine that is of no apparent use
•Vestigial organs are often homologous to organs that are useful in other
species
 THE EVIDENCE FROM
COMPARATIVE EMBRYOLOGY
• One scientist, Haeckel developed the theory that embryos, in
the course of development, repeat evolutionary history of
their ancestors, “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”
• In short this simply means that the embryos of the higher
animals resemble the embryos of lower forms
• It is true that the early stages of all vertebrates are remarkably
similar and it is not easy to differentiate a human embryo to
that of a pig, chick, frog or fish during the early stages of
development
 THE EVIDENCE FROM MOLECULAR
BIOLOGY
• Scientists can compare the DNA of two organisms; the more similar the
DNA, the more closely related the organisms are
• DNA testing is a tool that Darwin never had, but it has helped scientists
after him to learn and discover a lot about evolution
• A universal genetic code is consistent with the idea that all organisms
evolved from a single organism that used that code
• Biochemists have compared the amino-acid sequence of proteins found
in different organisms
• Organisms that are closely related often have proteins with very similar
amino-acid sequence
THE EVIDENCE FROM BIOGEOGRAPHY
• Biogeography is the study of the geographical distribution of
organisms
 MICRO-EVOLUTION
• Microevolution refers to evolution of a particular trait in a
population and is therefore evolution on the smallest scale
• It results from a change in the relative frequencies of alleles in a
population over a number of generations
• Denotes the collective accumulation of small changes in a population
• Peppered moths evolution. -had two alleles for body color; one
determining light body color and the other dark body color.
 Due to selective pressures connected to pollution and predators,
possessing the allele coding for a particular color, could be a selective
advantage.
 POPULATION GENETICS
• Populations are the smallest units that can evolve.
• Populations are the units on which natural selection operates
• To bring about changes in allele frequencies
• Individuals cannot evolve
• A population is a group of potentially interbreeding individuals of
a species in a more or less geographically isolated area
• A population is a localized, more or less isolated subunit of a
species
Population genetics - continue
• Natural selection acts on individuals by removing them
from the population
• or allowing them to remain in the population
 The individual does not change as a result of natural
selection
 But the gene frequency of the population does.
 Fish in a pond are a good example of a population
 GENE POOL
• The totality of genes in a population is referred to as its GENE
POOL
• The GENOME, on the other hand, is the totality of genes of an
individual
• It is the gene pool whose allele frequencies change under the force
of natural selection
Allele frequency in gene pools may change
with time due to:-
• 1.Selective predation: - positive or negative : Where
individuals of a particular genotype are especially
vulnerable or particularly advantaged. e.g. Shell coloration
of some snails.
•2. Emigration or immigration: Successful migration
depends on a genetically controlled characteristics
•3. Mutation – When a random, rare, spontaneous change in
genes occurs in gonads of a breeding member of the
population, leading to the possibility of a new characteristic
in the offspring of this organism
 CHANGE IN GENE POOL
CONTINUATION
• 4. Random genetic drift – Where sudden hostile physical
conditions, such as an intense cold spell, flooding or a
period of drought, may sharply reduce a natural
population to very few survivors
• 5. Founder effect – When a barrier arises within a
population, instantly isolating a small sample of the
original population. This sample is likely to carry an
unrepresentative selection of the gene pool, yet it would be
the basis of a new population
 WHEN WILL ALLELE FREQUENCIES
REMAIN CONSTANT
 When:
 all disturbing factors are absent,
 the breeding population is a large one, and
 all genotypes (individuals) have an equal opportunity of
contributing gametes,
 random mating will perpetuate original proportions of
alleles in the population.
 HARDY-WEINBERG LAW

• The Hardy Weinberg (1908) principle forms

the basis of the science of population biology
• It maintains that the ordinary reorganization
of alleles associated with sexual reproduction
(independent assortment, crossover, and
fertilization) is not sufficient to bring about a
change in allele frequency
 HARDY-WEINBERG LAW
CONTINUATION
 The principle states that, in the absence of perturbing
forces, allele frequencies of a population will not change
from generation to generation.
 This can be used to predict allele and genotype frequencies
in current or future generations.
 In order for allele frequencies to change one or more of
several forces, other than sexual reproduction, must be
operating.
 Note that, if allele frequencies do not change, there is no
evolution
 HARDY-WEINBERG LAW
CONTINUATION
• The Hardy Weinberg principle claims
• that these frequencies will remain the same in the
next
• and all subsequent generations if
• no force other than sexual reproduction
• is available to change them
 HARDY-WEINBERG LAW
CONTINUATION
• The Hardy Weinberg equation:

•p +q = 1
•(p +q = 1).(p +q = 1)
•(p +q).(p +q) = 1
•(p + q)2 = 1
•= p2 + 2pq + q2 = 1
 HARDY-WEINBERG EQUATION WILL
BE VALID IF:
•Population IS large in size
 No mutation (no allelic changes occur)
 No migration (no gene flow into or out
of population)
•Random mating
 IN: p + 2pq + q
2 2
=1

• P2 : Stands for: Purebred dominant = 25%

• Pq : stands for Hybrid = 2 x 25%

• q2 : Stands for Purebred recessive = 25%

•1 : STANDS FOR 100%

• Therefore: p2 + 2pq + q2 = 100%
• If P represents white flower trait and q represents red flower trait, then the result in the
progeny will be: 25% white, + 2(25%) white + 25% red because P is dominant and q recessive

75% white : 25% OR 3 : 1 Phenotypic

 Hardy-Weinberg continuation
1. Let us assume a hypothetical population of green peas in which 55% of all the
gametes carry a dominant allele for round seed (Y) and 45% carry the
recessive allele for wrinkled seed (y).

2. Y2 + 2Yy + y2 = 1

3. 55x55 + 2(55x45) + 45x45) = 1

4. 3020 + 2(2475) + 2025 = 1

5. 30.2 + 2(25) + 20.25 = 1

6. 30% Purebred Round seed

7. 50% Hybrid Round seed

 HARDY-WEINBERG CONTINUATION
• Phenotypically = 80% Round seeds
• 20% Wrinkled seeds.
 PUNNET SQUARE
• Allele : Y = dominant y = recessive

55% (a) 45% (b)

Y male gamete Y female gamete
55% (a) x (i) (b) x (i)
Y male gamete (i)

45% (a) x (ii) (b) x (ii)

Y female gamete (ii)