EVOLUTIO

N
 EVOLUTION
• Evolution is change in the heritable traits of
biological populations over successive
generations.

• Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity

at every level of biological organization,
including the levels of species, individual
organisms, and molecules.
 EVOLUTION (contd.)
• All life on Earth shares a common ancestor
known as the last universal ancestor,
• which lived approximately 3.5–3.8 billion
years ago, although a study in 2015 found
"remains of biotic life" from 4.1 billion years
ago in ancient rocks in Western Australia.
According to one of the researchers, "If life
arose relatively quickly on Earth ... then it
could be common in the universe.
 EVOLUTION (contd.)
• Repeated formation of new species
(speciation), change within species
(anagenesis), and loss of species
(extinction) throughout the evolutionary
history of life on Earth are demonstrated
by shared sets of morphological and
biochemical traits, including shared
DNA sequences.
 EVOLUTION (contd.)
• These shared traits are more similar
among species that share a more recent
common ancestor, and can be used to
reconstruct a biological "tree of life"
based on evolutionary relationships
(phylogenetics), using both existing
species and fossils.
THEORIES OF
EVOLUTION
 Lamarck’s Theory of Evolution
• The French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
(1744–1829)
• Best known for his Theory of Inheritance of
Acquired Characteristics first presented in 1801
• He incorporated two ideas into his theory of
evolution, in his day considered to be generally true.
• The first was the idea of use versus disuse
• He theorized that individuals lose characteristics
they do not require, or use, and develop
characteristics that are useful
 Lamarck’s Theory of Evolution

• His second point was to argue that

the acquired traits were heritable
• Also known as “soft inheritance”
• Examples of giraffe and blacksmith
• This is traditionally called
"Lamarckism"
 Darwin's Theory of Evolution
• Charles Darwin, the mid-19th century, formulated
the scientific theory of evolution by
natural selection, published in his book
On the Origin of Species (1859).
• Evolution by natural selection is a process that more
offspring are produced than can possibly survive
• This can be explained along with three facts about
populations:
1) traits vary among individuals with respect to
morphology, physiology, and behaviour (
phenotypic variation),
 Darwin's Theory of Evolution
2) different traits confer different rates of survival
and reproduction (differential fitness), and
3) traits can be passed from generation to generation
(heritability of fitness).

• Thus, in successive generations members of a

population are replaced by progeny of parents
better adapted to survive and reproduce in the
biophysical environment in which natural selection
takes place.
 Mechanisms of Evolution

• From a Neo-Darwinian perspective, evolution

occurs when there are changes in the frequencies
of alleles within a population of interbreeding
organisms.
• For example, the allele for black colour in a
population of moths becoming more common.
• Mechanisms that can lead to changes in allele
frequencies include natural selection, genetic
drift, genetic hitchhiking, mutation and gene
flow.
 Genetic hitchhiking
• when an allele changes frequency not
because it itself is under natural selection,
but because it is near another gene on the
same chromosome that is undergoing a
selective sweep

• Also called genetic draft or the hitchhiking

effect
 Evidence of Evolution
• Ancient Organism Remains
• Fossil Layers
• Similarities among Living Organisms
• Similarities of DNA
• Similarities of Embryos
 Ancient Organism Remains

• Darwin found many types of remains of

ancient organisms
• Darwin and scientists today have
discovered that the ancient organisms
whose remains they find look like
organisms alive today
• They are probably the living organisms'
ancestors or evolved from a common
ancestor
 Fossil Layers

• Fossil layers are fossils that formed in sedimentary

rock
• Sediments sometimes include once-living organisms,
sedimentary rock often contains a lot of fossils
• Darwin noticed that fossils in the bottom layers are very
different from the organisms alive today
• Darwin concluded that organisms have not remained
the same since earth's beginning, and that they have
changed a lot, gradually becoming more and more
complex.
• He also realized that as new species arise, other ones
become extinct.
 Similarities among Living Organisms
• Organisms are similar to each other, but not exactly
the same.
• Similar organisms have differences that help them
adapt to their environments.
• Horses', donkeys', and zebras' bodies are set up in
pretty much the same way, because they are descended
from a common ancestor.
• The differences (zebra's stripes) show that each species
adapted to its own environment after branching off
from the common ancestor
• Generally, the longer ago the last common ancestor
lived, the less the organisms have in common.
Similar Basic Structure of Bones

Homologous bones in the limbs of tetrapods.

The bones of these animals have the same
basic structure, but have been adapted for
specific uses.
COMMON ANCESTOR

The hominoids are descendants of a

common ancestor.
DID HUMAN TRULY EVOLVED
FROM APES?
 Similarities of DNA
• Until recently, looking at physical features and
behavior was the only way to determine how closely
related two organisms are.
• Scientists now can analyze DNA to discover how
closely organisms are related.
• Every living creature has DNA, which has a lot of
inherited information about how the body builds
itself.
• Scientists can compare the DNA of two organisms;
the more similar the DNA, the more closely related
the organisms.
 Similarities of DNA (contd.)
• This method can also help when looks are
deceptive.
• For example, The bat and the crow both have
wings, and the squirrel does not.
• From this, one may think that bats and crows are
more closely related than bats and squirrels, while
the opposite is indeed the case.
• DNA testing is a tool that Darwin never had, but
it has helped scientists after him to learn and
discover a lot about evolution.
 Similarities of Embryos

• An embryo is an unborn (or unhatched) animal

or human young in its earliest phases.
• Embryos of many different kinds of animals
look very similar and often difficult to tell them
apart.
• Many traits of one type of animal appear in the
embryo of another type of animal.
• For example, fish embryos and human embryos
both have gill slits. In fish they develop into gills,
but in humans they disappear before birth.
Similarities of Embryos
 Applications

• Artificial selection: the intentional selection of traits

in a population of organisms. Used in:
• domestication of plants and animals; been used for
thousands of years
• More recently, in genetic engineering, with
selectable markers e.g. antibiotic resistance genes
being used to manipulate DNA
• Proteins with valuable properties have evolved by
repeated rounds of mutation and selection (e.g.
modified enzymes and new antibodies) in a process
called directed evolution.
 Applications (contd)

• Understanding the changes that have occurred

during an organism's evolution can reveal the
genes needed to construct parts of the body,
genes which may be involved in human
genetic disorders. For example, the
Mexican tetra is an albino cavefish that lost its
eyesight during evolution.
 Applications (contd)

• Many human diseases are not static

phenomena, but capable of evolution.
• Predicting the evolution and evolvability
of pathogens and devising strategies to slow
or circumvent it is requiring deeper
knowledge of the complex forces driving
evolution at the molecular level.
 Applications (contd)

• In computer science, simulations of evolution

using evolutionary algorithms and artificial life
started in the 1960s and were extended with
simulation of artificial selection.
• Artificial evolution became a widely recognized
optimization method as a result of the work of
Ingo Rechenberg in the 1960s.
• Evolutionary algorithms are now used to solve
multi-dimensional problems more efficiently than
software produced by human designers and also to
optimize the design of systems.
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