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  1. Last 7 days
    1. Evolutionary biologists could list many reasons why understanding phylogeny is important to everyday life in human society. For botanists, phylogeny acts as a guide to discovering new plants that can be used to benefit people.

      Understanding phylogeny is important because it helps scientists understand how living things are related and how they evolved over time. This can be useful in everyday life because it helps humans make better choices in science, medicine, and the environment. For botanists, phylogeny is especially helpful because it guides them in finding new plants that may have useful benefits for people, like medicine or food.

    2. For example, insects use wings to fly like bats and birds, but the wing structure and embryonic origin is completely different. These are analogous structures

      Insects, birds, and bats can all fly using wings, but their wings are not made the same way. Insect wings come from the insect’s outer body, while bird and bat wings are modified front limbs with bones. Even though the wings do the same job, they developed differently and do not share the same origin.

  2. Jan 2026
    1. Therefore, the small-billed birds were able to survive and reproduce. In the years following this El Niño, the Grants measured beak sizes in the population and found that the average bill size was smaller. Since bill size is an inherited trait, parents with smaller bills had more offspring and the bill evolved into a much smaller size.

      They were mostly small the soft seeds during the El Niño, the birds with smaller beaks were able to eat more easily and reproduce more than the large beaked birds. After the El Niño, the Grants measured the birds again and found that the average beak size in the population was smaller because more small beaked birds survived and had offspring.

    2. The capacity for reproduction in all organisms outstrips the availability of resources to support their numbers. Thus, there is competition for those resources in each generation. Both Darwin and Wallace’s understanding of this principle came from reading economist Thomas Malthus' essay that explained this principle in relation to human populations.

      This is saying that living things make more offsprings that the environment can support. Since food and water and many more stuff are limited, they have to compete to get what they need.