The boundaries are relativelyabrupt,
We, or at least I most often think of forests transitioning in a gradient. It is very cool to see that this is not necessarily true, and that there are abrupt moments of change. Not everything in nature has soft boundaries, some are very rigid and abrupt. Our vision of "organic" is this slow change, or gradient. Things that are abrupt or rigid we think of as "In-organic", "Human-made", and "Geometric". This is another study pointing out our assumptions.
The unbiasedsampling, comprehensive spatial coverage and temporalcontrol produce a sample that is arguably more accurate anddetailed than any current description of the vegetation today
This is a very bold statement, but an accurate one as far as I know. We hear a lot about the distribution of species and their ranges, but what is actually going on? How is the landscape changing? Not only locally, but at a much broader scale? This was a very thorough analyses.
Amazonian Dark Earth (ADE), patches of rich, anthro-pogenic soils scattered throughout the Amazon forests of South America ( Schmidt et al., 2014 ), as well as the growing evidence of extensive, pre-Colombian urbanism that has impacts on modern biodiversity ( Heckenberger et al., 2007 , 2008 ) have ended the belief in a pre-Colombian pristine tropical forest in Amazonia (
An interesting assumption that I did not realize we have, but when I do think of pre-colombian urbanism I do think of untouched forests/earth. I wonder if it is because of a lack of evidence, or because of how we are taught about history in the United States. This is an interesting crossover of the American public school system and our assumptions on ancient cultures and their respective agricultural practices. It reminds me of how we were taught that Native Americans and early colonists were friends, and we have an entire holiday about it when it reality, colonists murdered and raped Native Americans. They also try to kill off all the bison because they wanted to starve Native Americans, which I just learned about the other day. I wonder if we were to ask Eastern civilizations about ancient agricultural practices in South America, if they would assume the same things we do (which would mean a lack of evidence/knowledge) or if they assume that the landscape was shaped by ancient civilizations (which would mean we were taught to think otherwise). This would be a really cool sociological experiment.
istorical ecological studies can provide a baseline on which to design biodiversity recovery strategies and conservation goals. Ma
An example I think of is the catacombs in Europe. Something we do not think about is how unsustainable and awful burying people after they die is for the environment. It causes deforestation, contaminates soils, and uses a lot of resources. I have been to Italy twice, the second time I was able to go into the catacombs and learn about their history. Not a lot of people know this, but there are catacombs stretching throughout all of Europe, a lot being under Rome. There are dozens of levels of catacombs, all stacked on top of one another under the ground. Most we can not access because they have flooded or are not structurally sound. Rome is a large city, but Ancient Rome is not to the naked eye. There are layers upon layers of buildings under current day buildings that have been covered in sediment due to that power river. I went into a building in ancient Rome that had 3 buildings underneath it. The one at the very bottom was from before 100 B.C. So you can imagine, there were ALOT of people in Rome. They did not have much space and this river posed a threat to their crops. They couldn't afford to bury people like we do today, they had to think of something clever. So they stacked cemeteries on top of one another to reduce the amount of land area affected by the bodies. The hallways of the catacombs were designed for people to visit past family members, but that did not last long because of the smell of decomposition (yummy). So the hallways of the catacombs are extremely small and narrow, I am 5 4 and had to duck the entire time. They have holes cut into the walls where bodies were laid to rest, multiple right next to one another to take up as little space as possible.
This is an example of something we could take inspiration from when it comes to sustainable practices. The catacombs had their own issues, but some aspects of their design may be useful for the future of cemeteries. They reduced deforestation, which is something cemeteries are very bad about. Maybe we should start to stack our cemeteries similar to them to reduce the amount of acres cleared for the dead. We can do the same with the findings of this and other papers involving ancient civilizations. Learn from the past.
herefore, such practices have the potential to form the basis of viable proposals for effective natural resource management (Davis and Wagner 2003). In areas of highly threatened biodiversity, an understanding of the historical development of the ecosystem is essential. Historical ecological studies can provide a baseline on which to design biodiversity recovery strategies and conservation goals. M
I think this whole section is super important. Learning about past cultures is something that is not only difficult, but I feel is forgotten about in the biological community. We seem to very much focus on present day anthropogenic effects, and those of the past few 100 years. This is the first study I have read in the past 3 years of college that has connected ancient civilizations to present day ecology. We learn about ancient medicinal practices, but not how we can take inspiration and warning from ancient civilizations to heal our planet. There is a lot that could be learned from ancient civilizations, both good and bad practices that can inspire better resource management plans and conservation strategies. Most of the time, the answer to a lot of our problems is staring us right in the face, we just have to know where to look.
More and more workers (Baum, 2009; de Querioz, 2007) seem to favor the idea that speciation, rather than being a strictly punctuated event, is the gradual establishment of different types of isolation
This is a really good point. I think a lot of times we are taught that speciation just kind of happens. A few individuals are separated and over time become a new species. It is important to remember that speciation is a gradual event and that there most likely will not be a direct line from when something is one species and then a different species. This makes defining a species extremely difficult, because where do you draw the line? If it is a gradual change, is there a line to draw at all? Or should there be multiple lines?
n most of the studies on bee-pollinated species, nopollinator-driven divergence (or convergence) in color characterswas found
This is absolutely insane to me. How is there no bee-driven selection of flower color?? If someone were to ask me "why are these flowers this color", I would most likely answer "Probably because bees favor one color of the other, and different colors attract different pollinators/bees". I wonder if there is bee-driven selection of colors but it is so minuscule that it does not compare to other effects such as environmental stress and there fore, goes undetected. Maybe instead of bees influencing flower color, flower color influenced bees? So many questions!!
hey allow one to investigate relativemorphospace distributions among different angiosperm cladesand to identify particularly common and successful charactercombinations.
I think morphospaces could be a great visual tool for explaining these complicated concepts to the general public. Although some of these morphospaces are difficult, the simpler versions like Figure 1 could be really helpful in educating the public on the evolution of flowers. This could then lead to interest in flower diversity and a greater response to conservation efforts.
mpoverished popula-tions in some developing countries lack access to painrelievers or palliative care.For example, an estimated84% of the need for morphine equivalents in China isnot met. Addressing this major global health inequalityis a key priority for the World Health Organization4.
I think it is really cool that they are already relating this study to real world problems, especially those involving impoverished populations. I do not see a lot of studies discuss how their study relates/can be used to combat issues in impoverished or minority populations.
epigenomicregulation
The epigenome is one of my favorite things to learn/talk about and is a very underestimated part of gene expression. The epigenome is responsible for a lot of traits that are expressed. Dr. O'Donnell is a really great resource if anyone wants to learn more. Epigenetics are a huge part of genetic diversity and account for a lot of the variety we see in nature. It is also a very new discovery so there is not much known about it. The epigenome is a collection of chemical tags that are bound to DNA. They determine how "open" a chromosome is (how much if it is read) and what gets read. DNA methylation is the best known mechanism but there is also histone modifications and RNA mods. Your DNA is not what determines what you look/act like 100% of the time, the epigenome is a HUGE part! For example, identical twins have identical DNA but they always look somewhat different. They have different personalties and interests. This is because of the epigenome! It is very much affected by the environment.
Genetic diversity is very low inI. medeoloides
For all of my classes, low genetic diversity has always been defined as a bad thing. This is because the lower the genetic diversity. the more likely a species is to go extinct. When a species has more genetic diversity, the likelihood of an individual having a gene that is better suited for an environment is increased. When you have individuals that are almost identical to one another and an environment changes, the likelihood of a gene existing that is better suited for that environment is super low. This species is then super threatened by climate change and the shifting climates associated with it. Also, these species tend to be more susceptible to the effects of stochastic events (random) which are beginning to occur more frequently due to climate change.
Knowing the genetic diversity of species allows us to better protect those that have low diversity. Allocating resources is extremely important, and allocating them towards populations with low genetic diversity would help save many rare species from extinction.
Is there any case where having a low genetic diversity would be advantageous?
In the face of acceler-ating global change, the ability to understand whyspecies interact in the way they do has become particu-larly imperative to ecologists
Really important part! This is always my favorite section of research articles; the connection of the specific study with broader ideas and how the results can be used.
It is really important for us to understand the interactions between species, especially pollinator-plant relationships because almost every terrestrial ecosystem relies on them in one way or another. Everything is interconnected, and solving the pollinator crisis is a great first step in my opinion!
Pollination is a comparatively less intimate and a morevariable interaction type (Bascompte and Jordano 2014)than other systems in which cophylogeny has been stud-ied (
What other interaction types are there? Would predator-prey relationships be an example? Herbivory?
Also, why is pollination "less intimate"? How is the intimacy of interaction types defined and/or measured? Why are some interactions more intimate than others?
I have never heard the use of "intimate" in a study before (or at least I do not believe so)
There have been few surveys for native bees to date, but it is likely that climate change will make the Northeast more hospitable for southern plants and associated bee species; thus, one might expect that Mid-At-lantic or southern bees will soon be recorded in the region
This to me is the scariest consequence of climate change...southern areas will become even warmer forcing plants/insects/animals north which will interfere with native northern populations. Either through competition, or through the warming of the north itself, these northern populations will push into regions that are even more north...but there is only so much "north", we run out of earth eventually. Soon populations will have no where to run, and will either adapt and evolve to these dramatic changes in not only temperature, but also competition or will die off. It will also be interesting to see how humans react to such a change in native plants/insects. A non-plant example is the Great White Shark. Due to southern waters warming, GWS now stay in the north longer into the winter. Seals are doing the same thing, staying up north longer than they used to, which is a double wammy for GWS. More food and a more hospitable environment = a lot of sharks. Humans do not like sharks, especially when they eat cute fluffy seals. I fear for these shark populations, as I fear for these plant and insect populations.
cleptoparasitic bees
These are bees that secretly invade host nests and lay their eggs. Also called "cuckoo bees" named after cuckoo birds
https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2010/09/history-cuckoo-bees-needs-rewrite-study-says
both angiosperms and gymnosperms bear ovules, the transcriptional cascade contributed to carpels by ovules may be their most ancient component. Indeed, the re
So are they saying that for the evolution of flowering plants, ovules of cones evolved into the ovules of flowers which then further evolved into the carpels of flowers?
And this is the most "ancient component" because it occurred before the evolution of the male cone parts into perianth parts?
concatenated
Definition: "To link things together in a chain or series"
Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (
The Galapagos of plants?
The refugia were characterized with special, bufferingenvironments, in which species can persist one or more glacial–interglacial cycles
I remember discussing refugia in Botany last spring and how many of our species, animal and plant, are here because they were able to survive in these refugia. Wasn't this an explanation for why in the NorthEast plants seemed to colonize so quickly after glaciation?
The climate of Mt. Washington is one of the most severe in the world.
The fact that Mt. Washington has such extreme weather makes it a particularly cool place to study life of any kind. I think this is important to discuss because how and why we choose what to study is biased in itself, and therefore we only know about things we are interested in. I sometimes wonder what else is out there to be discovered/understood that no one has found interesting for whatever reason. This is also important in the sequence of how we learn about things, and what we choose to emphasize. Data may be non-biased, but what we research and educate others about is biased! This greatly influences our view of the world and how life works,
Second, the epidermal cells away from the root tip develop hairlike exten-sions called root hairs
What makes some plant species have a lot of root hairs and others less?
heat shock proteins
I would love to learn more about this. If anyone is interested, this link gives some insight into heat shock proteins:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41388-019-1016-y
They seem extremely important.
a single zygote (the result of fertilization of egg and sperm) will produce four spores.
This means that these spores are genetically identical like that of identical twins in humans, correct?
Perhaps the most striking example of this reductive evo-lution is the giant ‘‘carrion flower’’ from the Philippines,Rafflesialagascae, which may have lost its entire plastome
I just don't understand how this works at all...how can you just get rid of an entire plastome...wondering the genetic mechanisms behind this...probably explains in the paper but just way too congested for my brain to understand.
101 kb in the mossBuxbaumia aphyll[7] to 11.3 Mb inSilene con-ica
What are these sizes? What do the units mean?
Red and far-red light does not penetrate far into water,
This confuses me a little because in the deep ocean, many species use red lights to find prey. They produce a red light to see others around them. Also the opposite occurs where species are the color red to blend in to the marine environment (I believe someone brought this up in class). As far as I know, this isn't to blend in with rocks or plants but rather the light itself that barely reaches that far down...is that technically the red light signals? Not red light?
photoreceptors
Do only plants/algae have photoreceptors? Or do animals as well? For example, bearded dragons have a third eye on the top of their heads that is used to detect changes in light, would this be classified as a photoreceptor? It is structurally an eye, it has a retina. Does that change whether it is classified as a photoreceptor?
plant responses to gravity and temperature.
I learned about this my freshman year at a different college. It is terrifying to me how "smart" plants are....how do they react to things without thinking? and this advanced?
Also, this reminds me of how vines grow and literally climb things, without eyes or brains. Honestly a horror movie.
Together, this emerging body of research suggests that exposure to EDCs could have consequences not only for our own health and for that of our children, but also for the health of generations to come.
To me, this is the scariest part of this whole thing. We always seem to try to fix/manage things after they have already happened and very rarely do this preventatively. Like to me it is obvious that chemicals are going to be bad for organisms...probably because I have been taught that my entire life. But how did it take this long to figure out we shouldn't be just throwing chemicals in places?
My mom always says "Ask for permission not forgiveness"...and this reminds me of that
How are we going to manage these issues if they are passed down to future generations? That makes it way more complicated...
controversial
Why controversial?
an artificial estrogen
Why did they start prescribing this in the first place? Was there something causing miscarriages at this time that we thought DES would counter act?
when scientists reach beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries to spark new insights, approaches, and discoveries
The more we read in this class the more I wonder, why did we ever study things "separately"? Why did people think that was the best way to learn? We know that biology is not neat and tidy so why are/were our disciplines that way? Was there an advantage to this type of thinking?
found EDCs in every individual tested and in ecosystems at the far corners of the Earth
Do EDC's naturally exist as well or are they specifically chemicals created/released by humans?
epigenetic variation may result from epigenetic modifications arising stochastically and irrespective of the surrounding environment
I think this is a very important point. I remember in one of my classes it was emphasized that not all traits we see in organisms have an evolutionary purpose, some are just there because of random mutations with no benefit. Not everything in biology exists because of a purpose!
the study of all reversible chemical changes
I have never heard this before...'reversible chemical changes". Do we know this for certain? I definitely can imagine stressors causing an increase in DNA methylation that cannot be reversed just as there are many that can be reversed. I feel like this is a pretty bold statement for an area of study that is very new and understudied.
Philosophically, biodiversity conservation has built on four (not mutually exclusive) pillars.
I am currently learning about the conservation of biodiversity in my Conservation class taught by Dr. Reitsma. Although these pillars are definitely important, I do believe there are a lot more pillars that could be added to the mix. I wonder what made them choose these four?
DNA methylation (a) as biomarkers of past and present environmental stress events as well as biomarkers of physiological conditions of individuals;
This directly relates to my research proposal as well. I am also focusing on a gene that is influenced by stress hormones. I hope that this paper gives me some more insight that I can integrate into my own proposal!
Here, we argue that epigenetic variation, and more particularly DNA methylation, represents a molecular component of biodiversity that directly links the genome to the environment. As such, it provides the required information on the ecological background of organisms for an integrative field of conservation biology.
This argument directly relates to my research proposal. As a conservationist, I wanted to focus my proposal on a topic involving conservation. My project is how the presence of an invasive species affects the body color of the Green Anole through DNA methylation. I hope to connect conservation biology to the affects of invasive species on DNA methylation.
behavioural plasticity is typi-cally assumed to be a low-cost, rapid response
This sounds super interesting and I would love to learn more about it. I wonder if "Behavioral plasticity" has anything to do with intellectual ability... If we look at it that way, we may have a new way of "measuring" intelligence which the current notion of homo sapiens being the most intelligent I strongly oppose already: this could be great way to defend animal rights in society.
We highlight here the fact that different types ofplasticity act on very different timescales and are not all ofequal importance when it comes to adaptation to rapidenvironmental change
This is SUPER important. Time is a crucial component of adaptation and is as I understand the reason why we are currently in a human-caused mass extinction: species simply do not have enough TIME to adapt.
What is the respective contribution of evolutionand plasticity in determining rates of adaptation or in facilitat-ing species’ persistence
This question seems to be the connection between eco-devo and conservation thus far. The persistence of species is incredibly important when looking at it from a conservation perspective especially in our rapid changing environment as stated above. Although, it does not seem that plasticity is "plastic enough" for how rapid our world is changing due to human influence. Maybe it is not how "plastic" things are, but how fast they are able to dramatically change...
We conclude by advocating the need for cross-disciplinary collabor-ations
We have already learned in lecture that Eco-Devo is an interdisciplinary study but I think it is important to again highlight this point. I am glad that as time progresses, different scientific disciplines are becoming more intertwined like they are in nature. I hope that this interdisciplinary thinking and collaboration continues not just in the science realm, but all disciplines including art and literature.
The toadsare called out from hibernation by the thunder that accom-panies the first spring storm in the Sonoran desert. (Unfor-tunately, motorcycles produce the same sounds, causingthese toads to come out from hibernation and die in thescorching Arizona sunlight.)
This breaks my heart. Is there any way to restrict noise? I imagine there would be a lot of backlash from the community...how would you combat something like this?
Ecological developmental biology is the meeting of devel-opmental biology with the real world. It involves studying
Studying in the "real world" involves a lot more variables that cannot necessarily be controlled like in a lab...how do scientists account for all of these variables? It seems impossible to account for them all...how do they make their findings and statements as accurate as possible?
etiolated
Definition: Pale and drawn out due to a lack of light; feeble
trema-todes
Definition: any parasitic flatworm in the class Trematoda
Fetal–maternal genetic conflict can occur
I have never heard of this, super fascinating! I really don't know anything about pregnancy.
plasticity of life history.
I think this is a super important point. We often view ourselves as non-changing entities which is neither true philosophically or now, biologically! This has been a discussion for ages. My boyfriend is currently learning about plasticity in his existentialism philosophy class. I am interested to see what his fellow students would say in a discussion if he mentioned this biological side of it.
Human life histories are remarkably uniform, but with unique windows of vulnerability during which the environment affects genome expression
We learned about this is biosci, epigenetics. I always found this concept super interesting and I am excited to see it resurfacing in my education.
lsewhere, in both North and South America, indigenous populations experienced population declines up to 90 percent. The death rate among the Andean highlanders, however, was closer to 30 percent
Are there more people today with Andean highlander DNA than that of other indigenous populations due to this? Or did this drastic difference in population decrease not have an affect on the genetic abundance in today's population?
uickly adapted to the high altitude extremes, gaining resistance to cold temperatures, low oxygen, and UV radiation.
This article uses the term "adapted" instead of evolved. Is this verbiage correct? Were these traits heritable and therefor be considered "evolved" or are they not heritable and every individual had to adapt independently.
researchers would like to find DNA older than 11,000 years, and also acquire DNA from regions in northern South America and the Caribbean
I am assuming the DNA found today is already very damaged and likely hard to analyze. Would something more than 11,000 years old have any DNA that could be used for such an in-depth analysis? Are there different substrates that are better for preserving DNA than others?
the movement of the first humans as they spread across the Americas, venturing both southward and northward and sometimes mixing in with the local populations
I wonder why these humans decided to migrate and if there is any research, evidence, or hypotheses on this... Looking for food? Water sources? Reduce competition? Pure Curiosity?
A renewed research focus on integrated pest man-agement that aims to alter human behaviors pro-moting pests, remove or restrict access to pesthabitats, and promote communities of nativespecies that resist infestation may slow adaptationof pests in urban environments
I think this a great idea...the least amount of pesticides and chemicals we use...the better. People forget to think about the entire life cycle of these chemicals they are using and how it affects other organisms later on in the products life cycle.
whether evolution in urban environ-ments stems from new mutations that occur afterurbanization or from preexisting mutations thatpersist as standing genetic variation within pop-ulations.
I would hypothesize that it is a combination of both.
Mendelian inherited traits.
Pea plants!
we use the term“urban”to refer to densely pop-ulated human settlements and“city”to includelarge metropolitan centers and towns
I wonder what their definition of "densely populated" is? Also, does this include large college campuses? Such as an UMASS school?
more impervious surface cover,
I think this issue is one that is often overlooked. Surface permeability has a huge affect on water distribution and habitat fragmentation (road ways). Definitely an area that needs more research and innovation.
while keeping in mind that observable sexual dimorphism is not an entirely reliable guide to the strength of sexual selection, a complete explanation for morphological differences among taxa requires consideration of factors affecting sexual selection in populations of organisms.
I think it is important to note that observable sexual dimorphism is not entirely reliable and it is very likely that there are traits "used" for sexual selection that we do not see/recognize.
Why the ornaments used by birds and other nonhuman animals usually appear so strikingly beautiful to humans is another question, but it’s a mystery that does not have to be solved for us to understand sexual selection.
Isn't our sense of beauty us selecting mates due to these same processes discussed in the paper? We see beauty in other humans and therefor, attraction and possible courtship occurs just like in other organisms. Also, birds definitely experience a sort of attraction to different species. Birds in captivity try to mate with their owners often. I find it interesting that as I said before, we are very quick to assume other species do not have a sense of aesthetics.
Maybe this process is operating in the background in all systems characterized by mate choice or maybe it comes into play episodically when conditions are especially favorable for its operation.
Wouldn't it be beneficial to discuss a combination of these models? I hypothesize that it would be more likely that species exhibit more than one of these models instead of them perfectly following these arbitrary guidelines.
the ornament becomes so large as to be a major impediment to survival, a point that was actually well appreciated by Darwin (1871).
An example of this can be seen in the Irish Elk in which the horns of males became so large they could no longer hold up their heads and the species went extinct.
egardless, in the midst of Darwin’s tremendous insights pertaining to sexual selection, the suggestion that a sense of aesthetics is necessary for sexual selection to operate may have been his most significant shortcoming.
I definitely understand that a sense of aesthetics is NOT NECESSARY for sexual selection, but who is to say other organisms do not have a sense of beauty/aesthetics? I think this would be a super interesting area to study if not already and I have just not read it.
show that females are not mating at random in most cases
What is an example in which females do mate randomly? And is it safe to assume these examples are mating randomly or that they are exhibiting preference in which we just have not identified? I believe the latter is more appropriate: We just have not identified.
that Darwin, despite having tremendous insight given the state of biology in the 19th century, did not get everything right,
I think that it is important to remember this not only while thinking about Darwin but also all other scientists. That is the beauty of biology. We never know or will know exactly what is going on and there is always work to do. We are constantly changing ideas, creating new ideas, correcting others work, and exploring new areas that we never new existed.
the main goal of the book was to provide evidence that evolutionary principles applied to humans and that humans descended from some ape-like common ancestor.
I wonder how much backlash Darwin received due to this idea and how it compared to the backlash he received about natural selection in the origin of species... I would assume it was much worse due to him questioning where humans came from (which most believed adam and eve) and supporting the idea that we are not separate from nature and it's processes but rather much like everything else around us.
herefore, we undertook an investigation of the developmental mechanisms responsible for generating variation in the pmx of closely related species of this important group of birds. In doing so, we address fundamental questions concerning the evolution of beak-shape diversity.
Hypothesis/question
aimed to understand how changes in developmental controls of a morphological trait may constrain or facilitate diversification
HYPOTHESIS/QUESTION
morphogenesis of the prenasal cartilage,
What creates the beak.
which is closely associated with the exploitation of multiple ecological niches and likely played a key role in the diversification of thousands of avian species
Why bird beaks are important and helpful in understanding Evolutionary Development
and the amount of variation in the individuals of the same species is so great that it is no exaggeration to state that the varieties of the same species differ more from each other in the characters derived from these important organs, than do the species belonging to other distinct genera.
variety among individuals in the same species.
Natural selection, it should never be forgotten, can act solely through and for the advantage of each being.
natural selection occurs to individuals and consequently the group. but not on the group as a whole
ow in the scale of nature are more variable than those which are higher.
??
multiple parts are extremely liable to vary in structure.
not everything is going to be exactly the same, neither in a species or in one individual
COMPENSATION AND ECONOMY OF GROWTH.
There is a limit to natural selection and what nature can do. One adaptation must compensate for another.
many exceptions to this rule
There is never a box that all of nature fits in. Nature doesn't care about our rules.
we may conclude that habit, or use and disuse, have, in some cases, played a considerable part in the modification of the constitution and structure; but that the effects have often been largely combined with, and sometimes overmastered by, the natural selection of innate variations
Summary of this section
wide flexibility of constitution
IMPORTANT. FLEXIBILTY.
so as to be better fitted for them than they were at first.
acclimatization
they become acclimatised
An individual can acclimate over time in just their life span to environmental stressers and competition. Epigenetics.
competition of other organic beings quite as much as, or more than, by adaptation to particular climates.
competition causes evolution as well, not just climate
all the species of the same genus are descended from a single parent-form, acclimatisation must be readily effected during a long course of descent.
Common ancestor, descent with modification.
hose which inhabit the several caves of Europe and America are distinct; but it is possible that the progenitors of these several species, while they were furnished with eyes, may formerly have ranged over both continents, and then have become extinct, excepting in their present secluded abodes.
Natural selection and extinction. everything has an ancestor
Notwithstanding such modifications, we might expect still to see in the cave-animals of America, affinities to the other inhabitants of that continent, and in those of Europe to the inhabitants of the European continent.
common ancestors and relatedness
an increase in the length of the antennae or palpi, as a compensation for blindness
Pairing of a loss of one adaptation and gain of another to better fit environment.
accommodated to surrounding circumstances.
Important
On my view we must suppose that American animals, having in most cases ordinary powers of vision, slowly migrated by successive generations from the outer world into the deeper and deeper recesses of the Kentucky caves, as did European animals into the caves of Europe.
Migration is an important factor of natural selection!
any way injurious to animals living in darkness, their loss may be attributed to disuse.
we now know it is due to the conservation of energy
As frequent inflammation of the eyes must be injurious to any animal, and as eyes are certainly not necessary to animals having subterranean habits, a reduction in their size, with the adhesion of the eyelids and growth of fur over them, might in such case be an advantage; and if so, natural selection would aid the effects of disuse.
Good example: Moles and blindness.
For when a new insect first arrived on the island, the tendency of natural selection to enlarge or to reduce the wings, would depend on whether a greater number of individuals were saved by successfully battling with the winds, or by giving up the attempt and rarely or never flying. As with mariners shipwrecked near a coast, it would have been better for the good swimmers if they had been able to swim still further, whereas it would have been better for the bad swimmers if they had not been able to swim at all and had stuck to the wreck.
Good example.
We may believe that the progenitor of the ostrich genus had habits like those of the bustard, and that, as the size and weight of its body were increased during successive generations, its legs were used more and its wings less, until they became incapable of flight.
Example of the loss of an adaptation: an ostrich.
caused by disuse
Adaptations come from not just the need for a new adaptation but can also be reversed and shown as the loss of some adaptation. This can be due to unneeded energy consumption along with many other things. Things can "adapt out" as much as they can "adapt in".
such modifications are inherited
IMPORTANT
lay less weight on the direct action of the surrounding conditions,
It isn't only the climate that causes adaptation.
When a variation is of the slightest use to any being, we cannot tell how much to attribute to the accumulative action of natural selection, and how much to the definite action of the conditions of life.
Is variation always due to climate and other environmental factors? Darwin is right. It is not all due to climate and other environmental factors but rather sexual selection, random mutation, adaptive behavior, etc.
variability is generally related to the conditions of life to which each species has been exposed during several successive generations.
A main point?
due to chance
Natural selection is due to chance, not because species "want" or "Know" that they need to adapt to environmental pressures/changes.
lgorithms that are used to solve complex problems in many fields [53],[54]. In particular, engineering and design processes have incorporated evolutionary computation, leading to improvements in design of cars, bridges, traffic systems robots, and wind turbine energy, among other applications [55]–[59].
We have so much to learn from the natural world. I have always argued that we are not the dominant species. Any body have thoughts on that? How do you define dominance?
conservation strategies
This is definitely what I am most interested in when it comes to evolutionary biology. I have very little interest in human biology so I am glad not all evolutionary biology is focused on humans.
Maintaining genetic diversity in crop and animal production systems considerably reduces these risks [38].
Monoculture is a large reason for the decline in genetic diversity of certain crops and also the decline in overall resistance to herbivores. How can we begin to eradicate this type of farming and instead, a type of permaculture?
the microbiome in human health
I remember learning about the importance of the microbiome in Bio Sci I. I would love to learn more about this not only in humans but other organisms as well and how human practices may be altering the microbiome of other organisms if at all. Is the role of the microbiome in different organisms being altered due to environmental stress caused by us? Is this possibly a new conservation concern?