Evidence of evolution:

Fossils

Why does evolution matter?

- Still happening
- How it came to be/history
- Microbes (contain diseases)
- Antibiotics
- Resistance: cures for diseases
- Evolutionary process for organisms to be more mild
- Things evolves
- Happens over many generations
- If organisms have short lifespans- many generations can happen in a week, month, year + vice
versa
- All depends how long the lives are of the organisms

Natural and artificial selection

Water, food, habitat, mate = longer lifespan = more time to reproduce more times = more opportunity to
pass on traits

- If something is useful to that species, then more species over time will receive that trait because it
helps them to survive

Selective pressures: temperature change, light level change, change in competition, change in predators
- These conditions are FOR certain and also AGAINST

Lamarck: use and disuse - use it (and pass it on to offspring) or lose it (don't make a lot of offspring with
that trait)
Darwin: descent with modification -ass on all the genes you have to your offspring with more and more of
the populations' offspring having beneficial traits for the current environment.
Lamarck - evolution in one organism's lifetime
Darwin - evolution over generations
 Evolution Quest Notes

Fact: an observation that has been repeatedly confirmed, accepted as “true”

Truth: the “truth” is never final- it can always be modified or discarded
Hypothesis: tentative statement about the natural world leading to deductions that can be tested. Can be
used to build more complex inferences and explanations
- If the deductions are proven right, then the hypothesis is correct
- If the deductions are proven wrong, the the hypothesis is incorrect (must be abandoned or
modified)
Law: a descriptive generalization about how some aspect of the natural world behaves under stated
circumstances
Theory: In science, a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that can
incorporate facts, laws, and tested hypotheses

Adaptation and Variation

Adaptation (Physical, Behavioural, Physiological)

- Helps the organism survive and reproduce in a certain environment
- Hibernation: physiological
- Camo and mimicry (two animals look similar, one is threatening): structural
- Snail:
- Physical: shell for protection
- Behavioural: collapses into shell for protection, hibernates?
- Physiological: produces mucus

Variation
- Structural/physical, functional/behavioural, or physiological differences between individuals
- Not all variations can become adaptations
- The environmental conditions can determine whether the variation has +, - , or no effect on the
organism
- If there is a good variation- the species will be more likely to survive- the gene will be
passed on to the next generation/offspring because it is helpful

Mutation
- Changes in genetic material (DNA) of organism
- Provides new alleles in a species and the only source of a new genetic variation when inherited
- Can have an effect on DNA: cells die, malfunction, multiply more than it should- tumor
- If mutation occurs in somatic cell, it’ll disappear after the organism dies (won’t be passed on)
- If it's in the DNA of the gamete, it will be passed on as a new allele

Selective advantage
- Genetic advantage > its competitors
- Helps the organism survive changing environmental conditions and reproduce
- Daphnia can only survive in 20º water, but mutation (selective) allows it to survive in 27º water
 - If an organism has a selective mutation that is very helpful- it will pass it along to next
generation- can mean the survival of the whole population depending on how helpful it is

Natural and Artificial Selection

Natural selection: process where characteristics of a population change over many generations. Many
individuals with certain inherited traits survive local environmental conditions, through reproduction, pass
on alleles to offspring.
- Situational
- If the alleles help the organism, it will be passed on to help them survive
- Criteria
a. Must have variation/diversity
b. Trait must be passed on from generation to generation
c. More offspring are produced than the offspring can support (weak offspring will die)

Artificial selection

Selective pressure: abiotic and biotic factors that can help or not help organisms.
Temperature change, light level change, change in competition, change in predators
- These conditions are FOR certain and also AGAINST

SELECTIVE ADVANTAGE IS AN EXAMPLE OF SELECTIVE PRESSURE

Artificial selection:
- Selective breeding is a form of artificial selection → both are types of biotechnology →
biotechnology is the use of technology and organisms to produce useful products
- Meat, eggs, dairy comes from animals that were selectively bred
a. Cows produce more milk, chicken become bigger
- Criteria
a. Must have variation/diversity
b. Trait must be passed on from generation to generation

Fitness: contribution an individual makes to the gene pool of the next generation by producing offspring
that will survive long enough to reproduce
- Organism with high fitness = many viable offspring vice versa

Diversity

Monoculture: extensive plantings of the same varieties of a species over large expanses of land
- Easier to manage crops when only one type of plant is there
- If a disease spreads, it’s over

Influence of humans vs. the environment

Speed of change (artificial is faster)

Resultant variability/diversity (with artificial selection there is less diversity)

- If farmers want plants to be similar, the genetic diversity is reduced
- Hard to adapt to changing environments

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages

Sources of Evidence for Evolution

The fossil record: biogeography, anatomy, embryology, and relationships in DNA all provide evidence for
evolution

Transitional fossil: a fossil that shows intermediary links between groups of organisms and shares
characteristics common to two separate groups
- Connection between one organism and another
- Dinosaur and bird

Vestigial structure: a structure that is a reduced version of a structure that was functional in the organism’s
ancestors
- Reduced skeleton parts
- Do not function in the organism that contains it
- Wisdom teeth (don’t need)

Fossils
- Fossils found in young layers of rock are much more similar to species alive today than older
layers
- Appear in chronological order in the rock layers
- Not all organisms appear in the fossil record at the same time
- The evolution of different organism- if it evolved, it won’t be in the same layer because it
has evolved

Biogeography
- Where organisms are found on earth
- The study of the past and present geographical distribution of organisms
- Darwin and wallace hypothesized that species evolve in one location and then spread to
other regions
- Geographically close environments are more likely to be populated by related species
than locations that are geographically far but environmentally similar
- Animals found on islands closely resemble animals found on the closest continent
- Animals are mainland migrants where the population has adapted over time as
they adjust to environmental conditions over time
- Fossils of the same species can be found on the coastline of neighbouring continents
- Closely related species are almost never found in exactly the same location and habitat
 - One is better than the other- survival of the fittest

Anatomy

Homologous structures: structures that have similar structural elements and origin, but may have different
functions (animal limbs have the same elements but different functions to further support itself (# of
bones, muscles, etc)
- Same ancestor

Analogous structures: structures of organisms that do not have a common evolutionary origin but perform
similar functions

Embryology
- The study of early, pre-birth stages of an organism’s development
- Determines evolutionary relationships between animals

DNA
- The evolutionary relationships between species are reflected in their DNA since DNA carries
genetic info from gen to gen
- DNA evidence supports conclusion about relationships and common ancestry provided by other
areas of evidence

Developing a Theory of Evolution

John Ray
- One of first scientists to carry out empirical studies on the natural world
- Developed classification system based on anatomy and physiology

Buffon
- Publicly challenged that life forms are unchanging
- Speculated earth was more than 6000 years old (challenged absoluteness of religion)

Mary Anning
- discovered several different specimens of dinosaurs that helped in the early stages of
palaeontology

Cuvier
- Founder of palaeontology (study of fossils)
- The fossil record
- Suggested catastrophes killed many species (catastrophism)
- Natural disasters, floods, diseases, etc
- Catastrophe = layer
Lyell
- Organisms change uniformly over time to become what they are
- Started one way, over time slowly gradually changed
- Uniformitarianism: geological processes in the past operate at the same rate they do today

Lamarck
- Proposed a “line of descent”
- You can progress from one organism to another in a direct line
- Inheritance of acquired characteristics
- During an organism’s LIFETIME, those changes get passed on to the offspring
- use and disuse - use it (and pass it on to offspring) or lose it (don't make a lot of offspring with
that trait)
- Giraffe theory

Malthus + Darwin
- Changes get passed on during many generations

Malthus
- Populations produce far more offspring than their environment can support
- Carrying capacity: more organisms than the environment can support
- Survival of the fittest

Darwin
- Kinda stole Malthus’s idea
- Life changes and continues due to natural pressures

1. Organisms compete for limited resources

2. Individuals of a population vary extensively
3. Individuals who are more fit will survive to produce more offspring
4. Change is not better/worse modification- simply just change

- Descent with modification

- Evolution over GENERATIONS

- Different regions of land = different plants/animals

- Fossils of extinct animals resemble living animals
- Animals on continent and close islands resemble each other
- Animals physically adapted to food available on each island

Wallace
- Made observations and conclusions similar to Darwin
Short answer questions:

1. A farmer spends much of her time outdoors. As a result, her skin has become very tanned. What
would Lamarck predict about her children? What would Darwin predict about her children? How
does this reflect the key difference in their theories?

Darwin: the child will not have tanned skin, but her grandchildren might because genes change over
generations
Lamarck: the child will have tanned skin because evolved genes will pass over to the offspring, physical
changes made to someone in their lifetime will be passed on

2. Is natural selection a fact or theory?

It is a scientific theory because it is supported by repeated observations

Pg 290

1. What is science?
a. a system of beliefs held by philosophers
b. a possession of knowledge obtained by reading
science books
c. an ongoing process for answering questions using
scientific inquiry
d. a process of testing and validating hypotheses to be
absolutely true
e. an observation that is made using knowledge from
past experience

2. Which of the following is most important in a

well-controlled experiment?
a. control groups, experimental groups, and
replication
b. observations, questions, and predictions
c. observations, guesses, and philosophy
d. proof of a hypothesis, predictions, and replication
e. questions, observations, and lots of hard work

4. After observing squirrels fighting with each other over

acorns in the heat during a drought, you make the
statement, “Squirrels compete with each other for food
resources, especially when resources are scarce.” Th is
statement is an example of which of the following?
a. a hypothesis
b. a question
c. an experiment
d. a theory
e. a prediction