Natural Selection, Evolution

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Natural Selection, Evolution Implications for
the Conservation of Wildlife
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Evolution

• Its the process that drives-
• the diversity of reproductive strategies weve
  studied
• the ongoing relationships between predator and
  prey
• the patterns of wildlife distributions around the
  globe
• responses to disturbances
• guides the migrants
• as well as the demise of all the species that
  have become extinct throughout all of time

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• Taxonomy Birds
• Class Aves (birds)
• Order Anseriformes (ducks, geese, swans, and
  relatives)
• Order Galliformes (chicken-like birds)
• Order Caprimulgiformes (nightbirds)
• Order Apodiformes (hummingbirds and swifts)
• Order Balaenicipitiformes (shoebill or
  whale-headed stork)
• Order Charadriiformes (shorebirds and relatives)
• Order Ciconiiformes (storks and relatives)
• Order Coliiformes (mousebirds)
• Order Columbiformes (doves and pigeons)
• Order Coraciiformes (kingfishers and relatives)
• Order Cuculiformes (cuckoos and relatives)
• Order Falconiformes (diurnal birds of prey)
• Order Galbuliformes
• Order Gaviiformes (loons)
• Order Gruiformes (coots, cranes, and rails)

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And even for humans, it drives
and who will not
who will survive
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And may just influence what happens next on
this graph
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• Nothing in biology makes sense except in
  the light of evolution -Theodosius
  Dobzhansky
• Evolution through natural selection
• is the foundation of modern ecology,
• biology and medicine.

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Theory or Fact?

• In everyday vernacular, a theory is a guess.
• As a scientific term, a theory is a statement of
  what are held to be the general laws, principles,
  or causes of something known or observed (OED)
• A scientific theory is testable and can make
  verifiable predictions
• In fact, it has been noted that we know more
  about the mechanisms of evolution than we do
  gravity, the nature of light, sleep, the weather,
  and something even more nebulous and stormy
  love.

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• Throughout much of human history, the dominant
  perspective (and still is in some of the less
  educated parts of the world and country), was
  that everything was divinely created in its
  present form, and that this Creator also
  orchestrated their interactions not unlike a
  master puppeteer.

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• Theologist What have you learned about the
  mind of God in the course of your studies of
  biology?
• J.B.S.Haldane Madame, only that he had an
  inordinate fondness for beetles.

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J.B.S. Haldane
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Charles Darwin(1809-1882)

• Published one of the most
• influential books ever written-
• On the Origin of Species-
• in 1859
• 2009 marks the 200th anniversary
• of his birth and 150th anniversary
• of the publication of OtOoS

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The Galapagos Islands
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What is Natural Selection?

• principle by which each slight variation of a
  trait, if useful, is preserved Darwin

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Natural Selection

• Individuals within populations are variable for
  nearly all traits
• Individuals pass on their genes to offspring
• More offspring are produced than can survive
• Individuals that survive and go on to reproduce
  (the most) are those with the varieties (alleles)
  that best adapt them to their environment
• Outcome alleles associated with higher fitness
  increase in frequency from one generation to the
  next

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Artificial Selection
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Artificial Selection
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Natural Selection is also a part of population
regulation

• The reproductive potential of populations is
  great, but
• populations tend to remain constant in size,
  because
• populations suffer high mortality.
• Individuals vary within populations, leading to
• differential survival of individuals.
• Traits of individuals are inherited by their
  offspring.
• The composition of the population changes by the
  elimination of unfit individuals

• Rabbits should cover the earth, but
• they dont, because
• many are caught by predators.
• Some rabbits run faster than others,
• and escape from predators
• and so do their young.
• Populations of rabbits, as a whole, tend to run
  faster than their predecessors.

From Ricklefs The Economy of Nature Second
Edition
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Important Points

• Weak forces operating over long periods of time
  create large and dramatic change.
• Natural selection is the non-random survival of
  random variants
• Natural selection- by itself- is not evolution.
  It is the mechanism that can lead to evolution.
• Natural selection takes place within a
  generation, but evolution takes place across
  generations.

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Watson Crick Mechanism of inheritance DNA 1953
Gregor Mendel Contemporary of Darwin father of
genetics -1866 Heritable traits dominance
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Peter Rosemary Grant
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Daphne Major
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Started research project on Darwin finches in
1973.
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Geospiza fortis
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Graph showing the distribution of beak depths for
medium ground finches in Year 1
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la Niña Drought
el Niño Rains
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Drought (la nina)
Wet (el nino)
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Following the drought of 1977, 85 of the medium
ground finch population died.

• In 1975, the rainy season came and went with nary
  a drop of rain (el Niño)

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Year 3 Data

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Caltrop seeds (Tribulus)
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• This demonstrates natural selection, but the
  story is not quite over
• The year of the drought, no young were produced
• After the drought, the 15 that survived
  represented birds with larger bills.
• These individuals did breed the following year.
• What do think their offspring looked like?
• (Small beaks? Medium beaks? Big beaks?)
• This is evolution.

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Other evidence for evolution

• Common structures (homologous)
• Analogous structures (convergent evolution)
• DNA Research
• Fossil Record
• Embryonic development
• Vestigial Organs Structures
• Imperfections in Structure
• Drug-Resistant Bacteria

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Homologous Structures common ancestor
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Homologous Structures
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Convergent Evolution Physical adaptations to
similar ecological conditions
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Convergent Evolution
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DNA

• - species that appear to be more
• distantly related from their positions
• in the fossil record are found to have
  correspondingly greater differences in
• their DNA than species that appear
• more closely related in the fossil record.

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Fossils
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Conservation Connection

• It is not the strongest of the species that
  survives, nor the most intelligent,
• but the one most responsive to change.
  Charles Darwin

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Punta
Alta a perfect catacomb for monsters of extinct
races
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• We are changing the world faster than species are
  able to adapt to these changes.

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Humans as an Evolutionary Force

• Human-induced evolution caused by unnatural
  selection through harvest of wild animals
  (Allendorf, F.W. and J. J. Hard. 2009. PNAS. Vol.
  106)
• The nature of fisheries- and farming-induced
  evolution (Hutchings, J.A. and D.J. Fraser.
  2007.Molecular Ecology. Vol.17)
• Rapid human-induced evolution of insecthost
  associations (Singer, M., C.D. Thomas and C.
  Parmesan. 1993. Nature. Vol. 366)
• Humans as the World's Greatest Evolutionary Force
  (Palumbi, S.R. 2001. Science. Vol. 293)

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Evolution BooksThe Old Classics
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Evolution BooksThe New Classics
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• It is a century now since Darwin gave us the
  first glimpse of the origin of species. We know
  now what was unknown to all the preceding caravan
  of generations that men are only fellow-voyagers
  with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution.
  This new knowledge should have given us, by this
  time, a sense of kinship with fellow-creatures a
  wish to live and let live a sense of wonder over
  the magnitude and duration of the biotic
  enterprise.

Aldo Leopold
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