EVOLUTION

K. GOPI
WHAT IS EVOLUTION?
 EVOLUTION

• Charles Darwin
• Evidence for evolution
• Mechanism of evolution
• Natural selection
• Speciation
 EVOLUTION

• “The origin of species by means of natural

selection or the preservation of favored
races in the struggle for life”
(“The origin”)
Charles
Darwin 1859
• “On the tendency of varieties to depart
indefinitely from the original type”
(“The Ternate paper”)
Alfred Russel
Wallace 1858
CHARLES DARWIN
(1809-1882)
• Traveled around the world
• Observed many species
and fossils
• Finches in the Galapagos
Islands
• Why did some species
survive while others
became extinct?
• Natural selection
• Published The Origin of
Species
GALAPAGOS TURTLES
 SUMMARY OF DARWIN’S
THEORY
1. Organisms differ; variation is inherited
2. Organisms produce more offspring than survive
3. Organisms compete for resources
4. Organisms with advantages survive to pass
those advantages to their children
5. Species alive today are descended with
modifications from common ancestors
 EVIDENCE OF
EVOLUTION
• Structural adaptations
– Mimicry
– Camouflage
 EVIDENCE OF
EVOLUTION
• Physiological
adaptations
– Change in a
metabolic process
– What do you hear
about in the news
about some
bacteria?
 EVIDENCE OF
EVOLUTION
• Fossils
• Anatomy
– Homologous structures
– Analogous structures
– Vestigial structure
– Embryos
• Biochemistry
 MECHANISM FOR
EVOLUTION
• Do populations or individuals evolve?
• What is a gene pool?
• How can the gene pool change?
• Mutation
• Genetic drift
• Gene flow
• Would these things effect a large
population or a small population more?
 ALL IMAGES: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php

Life Sciences-HHMI Outreach. Copyright 2006 President and Fellows of Harvard College.
NATURAL SELECTION
• What is natural selection?
• The traits that help an
organism survive in a
particular environment are
“selected” in natural
selection
• Divided into :
– Directional
– Stabilising
– Distruptive
Evolution by Natural
Selection
• 1. Variation among
individuals
• 2. Different survival and/or
reproduction
• 3. Change in genetic
composition
of population
• 4. Evolution
 DIRECTIONAL
SELECTION
• Favours one extreme
• One end selective
advantage
• Ex: long necked giraffes,
long tailed peacocks,
resistance to antibiotics by
bacteria
STABILISING SELECTION
• Favours the mean in range of
phenotype
• In stable environment
• The extreme alleles are
selected against
• Ex: average weight of human
babies, sickle cell trait to
protect against malaria
DISTRUPTIVE SELECTION
• Favours the extreme phenotypes
• The intermediate phenotypes
selected against
• There will be more than one
modal class
• Ex: finches with long and short
beaks for different food
resources
 Now it’s your turn – draw
stabilizing, directional and
disruptive selection
 SPECIATION
• Sympatric- between two groups of
same environment: behavioural
isolation, ecological isolation,
temporal isolation, mechanical
isolation, hybrid isolation

• Allopatric-geographical isolation
and reproductive isolation
 SPECIATION
• Geographic
isolation
• Reproductiv
e isolation
 REPRODUCTIVE
ISOLATION
• Fertilisation is prevented
(prezygotic)

• Zygote fails to develop

(postzygotic)
 REPRODUCTIVE
ISOLATION
• Prezygotic: habitat isolation, temporal
isolation, mechanical isolation,
behavioural isolation, gametic isolation
• Postzygotic:
-Low hybrid vigour-no proper
development
-low hybrid adult viability-failure to
thrive and grow properly
-hybrid infertility-healthy but infertile
 SPECIATION
• Gradualism
• Punctuated equilibrium
• Divergent evolution
– Adaptive radiation
• Convergent evolution
ADAPTIVE RADIATION – AN
EXAMPLE OF DIVERGENT
EVOLUTION
 CONVERGENT
EVOLUTION – WHAT IS
AN EXAMPLE?
 ASSIGNMENT

Describe types of speciation and

isolation
Dateline: 8/10/09
Email:gopimckl@gmail.com
THANK YOU