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MODULE 8a – Earth and

Subject Teacher:
Life Science

THE PROCESS OF EVOLUTION

Rice is the staple food in the Philippines. There are various types of rice in the country and Filipinos call
them by local names such as laon, wagwag, sinandomeng, and angelica. These are some of the
different varieties of the rice plant with the scientific name Oryza sativa, yet they all differ. What do
these differences imply? It means that human intervention can change the organism into a different
or improved organism. Human intervention includes choosing specific traits mixed with other selected
species. However, all organisms can change naturally through time even without human
intervention. This change through time is called evolution, the process by which modern organisms
have descended from ancient organisms.

Some Information about the Scientists and Evolution:

1. Carolous Linnaeus
a. Father of taxonomy (differentiate classical taxonomy and modern taxonomy)
b. Started the binomial system of nomenclature
2. Thomas Malthus
a. Believed that populations grow geometrically while resources slowly increase or not at
all, leading to competition
3. Jean Baptiste de Lamarck
a. First to propose about the theory of evolution: Theory of inheritance of acquired traits
and Theory of use and disuse
b. Physiological needs drive Lamarckian evolution
c. Defined evolution as process of increasing complexity
d. No extinction of species. Species disappeared because they just evolved into different
species.
e. Organisms adapt to evolve
4. Georges Cuvier
a. Established extinction through fossils
b. Believed that the earth was immensely old
c. Catastrophes caused that each one wiped out a number of species
d. Didn’t believe organic evolution because of the mummified cats and ibises
5. James Hutton
a. Proposed theory of gradualism (Slow subtle processes could cause substantial change
over time)
b. Great age of the earth
6. Charles Lyell
a. Proposed the theory of uniformitarianism (natural agents now at work on and within the
earth have operated with general uniformity through immensely long periods of time)
7. Gregor Mendel
a. Studied garden peas
b. Responsible for the: Law of segregation (two alleles for each gene separate during
gamete formation) and Law of Independent Assortment (alleles of genes on non-
homologous chromosomes assort independently during gamete formation)
8. Charles Darwin
a. Explained evolution through: Natural Selection, Idea of Common Descent, Idea of
Gradualism, Idea of Multiplication of species
b. Organisms evolve to adapt
9. Alfred Russel Wallace
a. Had a correspondence with Darwin
regarding the theory of evolution by means
of Natural Selection
b. Realized that species evolved because fittest
individuals survived and reproduced passing their
advantageous characters.
10. Hugo de Vries
a. Rediscovered Mendel’s work
b. Thought of theory of mutation but his idea of
mutation before has nothing to do with the real
mutations
11. Carl Correns
a. Rediscovered Mendel’s work
b. Worked on the Behavior of the Progeny of Racial Hybrids
12. Erich Von Tschermak
a. Rediscovered Mendel’s work
b. Applied Mendial laws to artificial selection to improve crop yield
13. Rosalind Franklin
a. One of the few women during their time to be
recognized for her contribution in the scientific
community.
b. Worked on the x-ray diffraction image of the DNA.
X-ray crystallography picture of the DNA that time
were not pictures of molecules. The spots were
produced by diffracted x-rays from the fibers of a
purified DNA.
c. She also concluded that the sugar-
phosphate backbones were outside the DNA
molecule (contrary to Crick and Watson’s
claim)
d. Died at the age of 38 (1958) so she was ineligible for the Nobel Prize.
14. James Watson and Francis Crick
a. Discovered that the DNA is a double stranded helix, from Rosalind Franklin’s works
Lamarckian vs. Darwinian Evolution: Comparing Theories on Evolution

Schools of Thought Lamarckian Darwinian

Physiological needs drives organisms to evolve; Natural selection: nature selects which
Central idea
to become more organisms will survive
complex and reproduce
Explanation on Theory of inheritance of Descent with Modification by natural
how adaptations
Acquired traits; and selection; survival
of organisms
of the fittest
arise Theory of Use and
Disuse

Smallest unit that Individual species Populations

can evolve
Do variations initially
No, variations are caused by Yes, important requirement for
exist in
inheriting acquired traits evolution
populations?
Common idea Environment as an important factor Environment as an important
for evolution factor for evolution
Yes, organisms that do not possess
Does extinction No, organisms just evolved into
adaptations (favorable traits) for a
happen? another species
specific environment go extinct.
Raw material for evolution-mutation
Missing ingredient Variations in population, acquired traits are not and how traits are passed from parents
passed to the next to offspring (Genetics) since Darwin
generation observed offspring to be resembling
parents but not identical to them
 Voyage of the Beagle
1. Primary mission of the voyage is to chart poorly known stretches of South America coastline
2. Darwin observed and collected thousands of plants and animals
3. Noted organisms special features that enabled it to survive diverse environments
4. Associated species of plants and animals in South America’s temperate and tropical
regions as more closely related species than species of the temperate regions of Europe
5. Fossils found in South America resemble living species in that same region
6. Saw fossils of aquatic organisms in the Andes (mountain region), and accounted its
presence through many earthquakes that may have happened. These observations
affirmed his learning from Lyell’s Principle of Geology.
7. The voyage reached Galapagos where he observed finches. There were finches
unique to the island while there were others that resembled the mainland species. This
helped him hypothesize that the Galapagos was colonized by species from the
mainland South America then diversified giving rise to different species (on different
islands).
Darwin’s Focus on Adaptation
1. Adaptation- inherited characteristics of organisms that enhance their survival and
reproduction in specific environments. Observed in the Galapagos finches.
2. The difference in beak types and behaviors are adapted to the specific food in home islands.
3. Natural selection caused these adaptations to arise. Natural selection explains the difference
in survival of individual since some individuals of the same species have inherited traits
(adaptations) that allow the organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment.
4. Nature selects organisms with high fitness.
5. Darwin thought of the idea of descent with modification, which was caused by natural
selection. Though at that time, he was not quite confident of his idea, until Alfred Wallace
sent him his manuscript (worked in the Malayan Archipelago) that contains Wallace’s
hypothesis of natural selection identical to Darwin’s, and asked Darwin if he can ask Lyell if it
has merit for publication.
6. Lyell presented Wallace’s paper with Darwin’s unpublished essay to the Linnaean Society of
London. The following year Darwin published his book: On the Origin of Species by Means of
Natural Selection

The Origin of Species

1. Darwin’s observation on nature
2. The unity of life (descent of all organisms from ancestors)
3. Diversity of life (caused by descent with modification)
4. Darwin didn’t use the word evolution in his book (though the final word in the book is
EVOLVED), but instead he used the term “descent with modification”
5. Viewed life history as a tree as compared to Lamarck’s ladder view on species
Descent with modification (by Berkeley Education)

1. Beetles on a diet
Imagine a year or two of drought in which there are few plants that these
beetles can eat.

All the beetles have the same chances of survival and reproduction, but
because of food restrictions, the beetles in the population are a little smaller
than the preceding generation of beetles.

2. Beetles of a different colour

Most of the beetles in the population (say 90%) have the genes for bright green
coloration and a few of them (10%) have a gene that makes them more brown.

Some number of generations later, things have changed: brown beetles are
more common than they used to be and make up 70% of the population.

Which example illustrates descent with modification — a change in gene frequency over time?

The difference in weight in example 1 came about because of environmental influences — the low food
supply — not because of a change in the frequency of genes. Therefore, example 1 is not evolution.
Because the small body size in this population was not genetically determined, this generation of small-
bodied beetles will produce beetles that will grow to normal size if they have a normal food supply.

The changing color in example 2 is definitely evolution: these two generations of the same population are
genetically different. But how did it happen?

Artificial Selection
1. Artificial selection- process of selecting and breeding of animals and plants over many
generations to achieve the modifications desired by human beings.
2. Caused the production of individuals used for crops, livestock, pets that resemble wild ancestors.
3. Instead of nature serving as the selecting factor, its humans that select which organisms will be
used for breeding depending on to the traits they want to improve.
4. Can take effect faster than natural selection, though follows the same principle as natural
selection where favorable traits will be more frequent in a population while less favorable traits
will diminish.

Natural Selection
1. Differential in rates of survival is dependent on individual’s heritable traits suited in the
environment.
2. An organism’s compatibility with its surrounding is increased by natural selection over time.
3. A change in environment (or movement of individuals to new environment) may cause a
species to give rise to a new species depending on the traits that will be favored by the new
environment.