NATURAL

SELECTION
The great biological paradigm

© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS

 Observation 1:
Exponential growth
Populations tend to produce more offspring
than the environment can support.

© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS

 Thomas Malthus
 Essay on the Principle of Population (1798)
 Populations in nature cannot continually
increase. Sooner or later food supply is
insufficient and famine stops further growth
 Both Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel
Wallace had read Malthus and understood
the idea of exponential population
growth.

© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS

  1 pair of cockroaches could produce 164
000 million in 7 months

© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS Cockroach population

 Observation 2: Zero growth

The numbers of K 3
individuals in a population 2
remain stable

Numbers
In terms of population 1
growth the population at
Time
its carrying capacity has
zero growth.

© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS

 Deduction 1 Competition

There must be a struggle for survival

Some of the offspring produced in a
generation do not survive
Darwin identified competition as a major
factor limiting population sizes.

© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS

 Observation 3: Variation

 Some of these variations are inherited by the

offspring
 The mechanism of the inheritance of genes
was being worked out at this time, remained
undiscovered by biologists until 1900
 Darwin was however aware that sexual
reproduction mixes variations to produce new
combinations (recombinants).

© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS

 Neo-Darwinism

 The great synthesis of the 20th century

 Mendel’s work was able to explain some of
the patterns of inheritance through the mixing
that occurs during meiosis and fertilisation
 Darwin could not explain the origin of new
variants
 This had to wait until the 1920s and 1930s
when work began on mutations after the
discovery of radiation.
© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS
 Deduction 2: Survival of
the fittest - Adaptation
 There will be a struggle for survival between
the members of the population
 Individuals with advantageous variations will
breed and produce more offspring.

© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS

 VISTA

 random Variations in living organisms…

 that are Inherited…

 will be Selected…

 through Time…

 leading to Adaptations to changes in

local environments.

© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS

 Natural selection in action
 As generations pass by,
the proportions of the alleles for the different variants
will change,
in favour of those that provide the best adaptations
 Natural selection has been observed at work in
populations of species over the past century
 Examples include:
pesticide resistance in insects,
antibiotic resistance in bacteria,
industrial melanism in moths,
tolerance to heavy metals in plants.
© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS
 The Origin of Species by
Natural Selection
 Darwin and Wallace argued that if natural
selection proceeded for a long enough
period of time it could bring about the
evolution of new species
 Darwin favoured a long period of slow
changes
 Recently refined to include the possibility of
rapid changes over a short period of time
(punctuated equilibrium).
© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS
 Natural selection is not the
only way
 Whether fast or slow, observing the
evolution of a new species is not easy in
the lifetime of a scientist
 That species evolve is a fact but that they
evolve by natural selection is one theory
 Other mechanisms exist that can also lead
to the evolution of species
(e.g. genetic drift).

© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS

 A revolutionary idea
 The theory of natural selection is based on
chance
 It has no direction
 There is no progressive “improvement” of
organisms
No guiding hand
 Adam Smith “The Wealth of Nations”
Laissez-faire economics
 “Never say higher or lower” (Darwin)
No organism is more evolved than any other.
© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS
 A persistent icon

© 2016 Paul Billiet ODWS