Week Nine: Back to the broad context, why is evolution important?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcpB_986wyk

Viewed: 04/05/17

In this weeks Blog entry, the broader context behind evolution and

why it is important is explored.

Evolutionary Theory is critical to explaining our history, it helps us to gain a more fundamental understanding of what occurs all around us, and helps us to understand the natural processes that drive changes among organisms. Evolution can somewhat be defined as changes in allele frequency that occur through successive generations. Bergstrom and Dugatkin state that an important fact to know of evolution is that it takes place not in individual creatures but at the population level, and is influenced by the series of small changes that make for a noticeable difference over time (Bergstrom & Dugatkin, 2016).

This allows us explanations for what we see occurring in nature, and explains how many organisms become specialised to their environments. Without the concept of evolution in place, little else would make sense, and it gives us a critical understanding of what is going on in out in the world. Evolution can be caused by four main mechanisms: natural selection, genetic drift, gene flow and mutation (Slatkin, 1987). By these devices we see changes in physiology, morphology and phenotypes which better allow these ‘evolved’ individuals to better thrive in their environments.

Charles Darwin is probably the most famed among evolutionary theory and led the way with his book “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” (Darwin, 1859), when he introduced that species evolve over time through the concept of natural selection where individuals with traits of increased fitness more commonly survive to reproduce, and as such those traits become more common among future generations,. Darwin also introduced that the diversity of life occurred through common ancestry and evolutionary ‘branching’. For next week the blog will link back to how phenotypes and morphology are caused by evolution and how this has lead to specialization in many organisms.

References:

Bergstrom, C. Dugatkin, L. 2016 evolution, 2^nd edition, W. W. Norton & Company, U.S.A

Darwin, C. 1859 On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, John Murray

Slatkin, M. 1987, Gene flow and the geographic structure of natural populations, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Volume 236, pp 787