BCH1200 Discovery in Biology: Evolution

Content
• The development of the evolutionary theory
• Charles Darwin and Natural selection
• Evidence for evolution
• Formation of new species
"Nothing in biology makes
sense except in the light of
evolution.“

Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975)

Mandrills are one of nature's most extreme examples of sexual dimorphism
Do species change over time?
An individual may look different as it is growing

how about a species?

How do we know evolution really occurs and a
species changes with time?

1 million years later

clipartist.info http://www.clker.com

Besse Cooper
(116 years old)
 Ancient views on evolution
• Pre-socratic Greek philosophers, such as
Anaximander and Empedocles:
– one type of animal could descend from an animal of
another type

• However, Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) viewed

species as perfect and unchanging
 What happened from 17th to 18th century?

• The modern science started in the

17th century sought explanations of
natural phenomena in terms of laws
of nature

Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

• William Smith observed that
rocks of different ages preserved
different types of fossils, and
those fossils were arranged in a
regular and determinable order

Grand Canyon
Geology of Grand Canyon
• Georges Cuvier (1769-1832)
believed that fossils were
remains of species that were
now extinct

Trilobites
sciencebuzz.org
In the early 1800s, Lamarck proposed that
• organisms evolve by the use and disuse of body parts
• acquired characteristics are passed on to offspring
Charles Darwin and Evolution

(1809-1882)
• Nature lover since he was a boy
• Abandoned medical school in The seven-year-old
Edinburgh Charles Darwin
• Sent to Cambridge University to
prepare for life as an Anglican
parson

Darwin College
University of Cambridge
 voyageofthebeetle.com

In his autobiography, Darwin wrote:

.. one day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles and seized one in each hand; then I
saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my
right hand into my mouth. Alas it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I
was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as well as the third one.
Darwin’s beetles. © University of Cambridge / Julieta Sarmiento Photography
 The voyage of the Beagle
 During Darwin’s round-the-world voyage (1831-1836) he was influenced
by Lyell’s Principles of Geology, suggesting that natural forces
• gradually changed Earth
• still operating today

 Darwin came to realize that

• the Earth was very old
• present day species have arisen from ancestral species by natural processes
 The Beagle Voyage
Darwin in 1840 HMS Beagle in port

Great
Britain Asia
Europe

North
America
ATLANTIC
OCEAN

Africa
PACIFIC
Equator OCEAN
PACIFIC Galápagos
OCEAN Pinta Islands South
America
Marchena
Genovesa

Andes
Santiago Equator Australia

Daphne Islands Cape of

Pinzón PACIFIC Good Hope
Fernandina OCEAN
Isabela Santa
Cruz Santa San Cape Horn Tasmania
Fe Cristobal
Tierra del Fuego New
Zealand
0 40 km Florenza Española
0 40 miles
Benchuca bug. Carrier of Chagas' Disease, causing
symptoms such as including chronic fatigue,
nausea and abdominal pain.
Down House,
Home of Charles Darwin
Robert Darwin married
Susannah Wedgwood whose
father Josiah Wedgwood died
in January 1795, leaving
£25,000 to her.
 The joint paper with Wallace was read at a
meeting of the Linnean Society on July 1,
1858, but it went largely unnoticed. It was
not until the theory came out in book form
the following year that it made headlines.

Alfred Russell Wallace

(1823-1913)
Darwin’s theory of evolution

 In 1859, Darwin published On the

Origin of Species by Means of
Natural Selection
 What is natural selection?
 Darwin recognized the connection
between
– natural selection and
– the capacity of organisms to over
reproduce

 An essay written in 1798 by the

economist Thomas Malthus argued that
human suffering was the consequence of
human populations increasing faster than
essential resources
barnesandnoble.com
 What is natural selection?
 Organisms
– vary in many traits
– produce more offspring than the environment can support
– organisms with traits that increase their chance of surviving and
reproducing in their environment tend to leave more offspring
than others
– this unequal reproduction will lead to the accumulation of
favorable traits in a population over generations
 Observations
Heritable variations Overproduction
in individuals of offspring

Inferences
Individuals well-suited to the environment tend to leave more offspring.

and

Over time, favorable traits accumulate in the population.

In the early 1800s, Lamarck proposed that
• organisms evolve by the use and disuse of body parts
• acquired characteristics are passed on to offspring
A flower
mantid in
Malaysia

A leaf mantid in Costa Rica

Example: Camouflage adaptations in insects

 What is natural selection?
Three key points about evolution by natural selection:
1. Individuals do not evolve: populations evolve.
2. Natural selection can amplify or diminish only heritable traits.
Acquired characteristics cannot be passed on to offspring.
3. Evolution is not goal directed and does not lead to perfection.
Favorable traits vary as environments change.
In summary, all you need for evolution is

inheritance, variation, and selection

 Evidence for evolution
• Fossil record
• Biogeography of species distribution
• Comparative anatomy
• Comparative embryology
• Molecular biology
 Skull of
Homo erectus
Ammonite casts
Dinosaur tracks

“Ice Man”
Insect in amber
Fossilized organic matter of a leaf
 Fossils provides strong evidence for evolution
 The fossil record shows that organisms have evolved in a
historical sequence
– The oldest known fossils, extending back about 3.5 billion years
ago, are prokaryotes

– The oldest eukaryotic fossils are about a billion years younger

– Another billion years passed before we find fossils of

multicellular eukaryotic life
Fossils of 3.5-billion-year-old microbial communities were discovered in Australia.
Credit: Nora Noffke
 Fossils provides strong evidence for evolution

 Many fossils link early extinct species with species living today.
• A series of fossils documents the evolution of whales from a group of
land mammals.
 Pakicetus (terrestrial)

Rodhocetus (predominantly aquatic)

Pelvis and
hind limb
Dorudon (fully aquatic)

Pelvis and
hind limb

Balaena (recent whale ancestor)

 Evidence from biogeography
• Darwin noted that
Galápagos animals
resembled species on the
South American mainland
more than they resembled
animals on islands that
were similar but much more
distant.
 Evidence in comparative anatomy
 the comparison of body structures in different species
 evolution is a remodeling process
 homologous structures have different functions but are
structurally similar because of common ancestry
(Not an evidence of evolution!)
 Convergent evolution

http://www.flickr.com/photos/grrlscientist/1814092845/
 Evidence in comparative embryology
 the comparison of early stages of development among
different organisms
 reveals homologies not visible in adult organisms
Vestigial structures are remnants of features that served
important functions in an organism’s ancestors.

Pelvis and
hind limb

Balaena (recent whale ancestor)

 Vestigial structures in humans
• Goose bumps: possible function in
the distant evolutionary ancestors of
humanity was to raise the body's
hair, making the ancestor appear
larger and scaring off predators

• Wisdom teeth: vestigial third molars

that human ancestors used to help
in grinding down plant tissue

By Ralf Roletschek - Own work, GFDL 1.2,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=581847
 Evidence in molecular biology
 DNA and amino acid sequences show evolutionary
relationships among different organisms
 all life shares a common DNA code for the proteins found in living
cells
 humans and bacteria share homologous genes that have been
inherited from a very distant common ancestor
 SINE: Short INterspersed Elements (junk DNA) is used to construct
the phylogenetic tree of primates
 Short interspersed nuclear elements (SINEs)
• SINEs are non-autonomous, non-coding transposable
elements (TEs) that are about 100 to 700 base pairs in
length
• Accidental insertion of junk DNA sequences near genes
• They cannot be removed once inserted
• Their presence in the same place in the DNA of two
species indicate these species share a common ancestor
Martin, 1990
The sharing of SINES indicates
the evolutionary relationships
among species.
• Species that diverged longer ago
have more differences in their
corresponding proteins
• Proteins evolve at different rates
depending on the constraints
imposed by their functions
• Cytochrome c, a protein involved
in energy transfer, is tightly
constrained and changes slowly
• Fibrinopeptides, which are
involved in blood clotting, are
much less constrained, with
hemoglobin an intermediate case.
Although a species changes with time as a result of
natural selection, how can new species formed?
Formation of new species (speciation)
(I) Allopatric speciation
– populations of the same species are geographically separated,
isolating their gene pools
– gene flow between populations is initially prevented by a geographic
barrier
– reproductive barriers can evolve as a by-product of changes in
populations as they adapt to different environments
South rim North rim
A. harrisii A. leucurus

Allopatric speciation of geographically isolated antelope squirrels

(II) Sympatric speciation
 occurs when a new species arises within the same geographic area
as a parent species.
 How can reproductive isolation develop when members of
sympatric populations remain in contact with each other?
 gene flow between populations may be reduced by
(a) polyploidy
(b) habitat differentiation
(c) sexual selection
 Sympatric speciation takes place without geographic isolation –
(a) polyploidy

 Many plant species have evolved by polyploidy in which cells have more
than two complete sets of chromosomes

 Sympatric speciation can result from polyploidy

• within a species (by self-fertilization) or
• between two species (by hybridization)
A. Speciation by autopolyploidy in plants

Self-
Meiosis fertilization

2n = 6 4n= 12

Diploid parent Through an error in Fertilization of one

karyotype meiosis, a spontaneous diploid gamete by
doubling of chromosomes another produces a
produces diploid gametes. tetraploid zygote
(offspring).
B. Speciation by hybridization and allopolyploidy in plants

Haploid
Species A Diploid Tetraploid
gametes
2n = 6 gametes zygote
n=3 Interspecific
Meiosis n=6 (offspring)
hybrid
2n = 6 2n = 12 2n = 12

Fertilization Meiosis
Mitosis
Self-
fertilization
Meiosis
Diploid gametes
Haploid n=6
Species B
gametes Nonhomologous A spontaneous
2n = 6
n=3 chromosomes will doubling produces
not pair properly polyploid condition
during meiosis. with homologous
chromosomes.
 Plant biologists estimate that 80% of all living plant species are
descendants of ancestors that formed by polyploid speciation

 Hybridization between two species accounts for most of these species.

 Polyploid plants
• cotton
• oats
• potatoes
• bananas
• peanuts
• barley
• plums
• apples
• sugarcane
• coffee
• bread wheat
 (b) Habitat differentiation
• occurs when subpopulations become dependent on different
resources than the parent population

• e.g., speciation in the hawthorn fly, Rhagoletis pomonella, also

known as the apple maggot fly
 Hawthorn
(native to N. America)

Apple
(introduced to N. America in
nineteenth century)

(normal)

(mutant)
 (c) Sexual selection
• e.g., sympatric speciation in cichlids of Lake Victoria
• 200 species of cichlids inhabit Lake Victoria in East Africa
• Sympatric speciation occurred as a result of variations in
available resources, and selective mating based on coloration
Intra-sexual selection
Elephant Stag Beetle

Fighting stag beetles

https://slideplayer.com/slide/5240067/
 Inter-sexual selection
Adult male sage grouses displaying in front of females
 P. pundamilia P. nyererei
(male) (male)

Normal
lighting

monochromatic monochromatic
orange lighting P. pundamilia orange lighting
(female)
 Additional readings
• Jon Turney (2008) Darwin Now. British Council.
• Ernst Mayr (2001) What Evolution Is. Basic Books.
• David Quammen (2006) The Reluctant Mr. Darwin. W. W.
Norton & Company, Inc.
• Brian & Deborah Charlesworth (2003) Evolution: A Very Short
Introduction. Oxford University Press.
• The complete work of Charles Darwin online:
http://darwin-online.org.uk/
• Richard Dawkins (2009) The Greatest Show On Earth: The
Evidence for Evolution. Free Press.
• James A. Shapiro (2012) Evolution: A View From The 21st
Century. FT Press Science.
• Jonathan Weiner (1994) The Beak Of The Finch. Vintage Books.