There is probably a lot of documentation on these pre-settlement trees around their resource purposes.

A lot has grown back right?

Note worthy

But not significant.

Future directions.

P>0.05

Reminds me of the last article on ancient forest gardens.

Not as effective dispersers as birds.

prevent

Possibly a last ditch effort to reproduce? or the poor soils could also be another indication over anthropogenic overuse of that land.

Could be the result of a gene that was historically favored / selected by humans. Seedless fruits are good for human consumption but not great for reproduction so it was likely a artificially selected trait rather than a naturally derived one.

Separate male and female reproductive organs in separate individuals.

I say not, if this species was cultivated and artificially selected than changes in things like fruit size could have had a beneficial impact for its wild consumers. This could have lead to increased animal consumption and seed dispersal, just a thought.

The Native Americans had a different perspective and lifestyle than the Europeans that colonized the US. The value of this tree was likely lost along with most of the Native Americans. For example, Native Americans used the entire buffalo they killed but the Europeans unsustainably killed them for just their pelts. A lot of the true value of North American nature was lost after colonization.

There has likely been similar artificial selection performed on both species. They could also both share a common ancestor and were segregated by the formation of the Bering Strait.

I can imagine that all of artificial selection has changed the evolutionary path of persimmon fruits.

They can result in inconstant expression of sex.

The physical, chemical, and biological properties of soil resulting from biotic / geological phenomena or anthropogenic activity.

Not involving any assumptions about the form or parameters of a frequency distribution.

Wow so most of these forest gardens have been abandoned for over 1000 years and they still have a presence in the ecosystem. I think that this is significant in terms of how beneficial ancient agricultural practices must have been for the ecosystem. We could have probably learned a lot from the Maya people.

Does this refer to changes and / or alterations of soil parameters?

The first thing that I thought of getting into this paper was the different sunfish species variation and hybridization in New England. It gets confusing when trying to identify the different species that I have caught around here.

beautiful

I know that we are focused on plants but interesting. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-51685-w

I really like the three dimensional visualization of this figure, it helps me picture/compare and contrast the given data.

It seems like these main processes are accelerated and almost erratic in plants, possibly because of the characteristics of their gene flow?

So the goal of this study is to prove that morphospaces can be more useful, than previously thought, in pant science?

A method of describing / comparing & contrasting phenotypes.

I have always been very curious about chemical receptors in our brains. Did we coevolve with some medicinal plants or can/could we naturally produce small amounts of chemicals, found in medicinal plants, in our body?

So this can help in the development in painkillers in terms of creating effective medicines that are less/not addictive. I'm also wondering if this could help with personalizing a drug for an individual? Personally I know that I am allergic to morphine, I get huge hives and it doesn't work as a painkiller for me.

It is interesting to think about how traditional medicines may have been discovered, probably a lot by accident. It also makes me think about the fine line between a specialized metabolite's ability to be medicinal or toxic. There are still probably a lot of compounds that are thought to be toxic or not useful but may just not be in the most ideal form or concentration. This type of work in the omics field is great because we will gain much more insight into the full function and potential of medicinal/useful plants.

My thoughts exactly... this is probably of a result of the northern range limit having been previously glaciated. Maybe the higher genetic diversity is related to the colonization of this area and there has not been enough time for one or a few distinct genetic groups to arise. This also could be because of the habitat diversity of post glacial regions.

I really like this figure. I find it interesting that the largest census population size had a bit more than average genetic diversity and was the closest to the northeastern range limit. It seems that the populations in the middle of the range have the most variation in population size and genetic diversity.

Pollinators are more evolutionarily limited than the pollination species (plants).

It would make sense that flowering plants and their pollinators would show a cophylogenic pattern. Being codependent I can imagine that they have evolved parallel to each other. There is probably increased interest in this because of the importance of pollinator species and the effects climate change / other environmental impacts have on them.

This makes sense because it has the most species within this group.

I would like to look further into these species.

Interesting to think of all of these different factors working together in a way that seems simple but they are all individually fairly complicated.

So does this almost show species demographics/compositions over time?

I have never thought about this, I have always just assumed that they could consume any pollen but it makes sense that is not the case.

In general, I think that conservation attempts, like for pollinators, are the most effective on local scales.

I like that they mention managed populations in the first sentence.

Are there benefits to this or is it just correlated to the reduction of the female gametophyte. Would this help the plant expend less energy and retain more water?

The origins of flower scent and coloration? Did this first occur in water lily?

Closest relative to gymnosperms?

I am very curious about the water lily lineage. Does it being semiaquatic have anything to do with why it was one of the first divergences amid the angiosperms?

Interesting to consider intervals of barriers between populations.

Maybe certain birds and animals contributing to distribution reduce the randomness of survival. Maybe the only stay within/ between similar habitats?

Climate change has a major effect on dispersal and tectonic motion plays a role in segregation.

I think that they did a great job with this figure and I didn't find it to be too complicated.

Makes sense, its a plateau.

Identifying distributional fragments.

This seems like chance w/ success be attributed to the randomness of dispersal + climate change. Long-distance seems random and its just by chance that they end up in a location that has a more favorable environment following climate change.

I wonder if this can be related to GMT?

Is this due to greater niche partitioning / available resources?

Alpine soils are very similar to tundra soils. The instability of alpine habitats contributes to inconsistencies and mosaic patterns between alpine communities?

The range in organic content could be due to the variations in gradients. There is an ambiguous range of what could be deposited on a mountain and where. I hypothesize that lower elevations have higher organic soil content.

This is almost like an island effect and can explain some aspects of community patterns.

This ambiguity may just be scientist looking too deep. The life span of these trees could just be attributed to a successful life cycle. There could be no real explanation besides the fact that a short life span had no negative impact on the species. It makes me also think about if the tress just have an expiration date or some chemical is released that initiates death after some level of development?

I find this especially interesting in terms of species living in vernal pools.

Are there species of land plants that have evolved back into full and/or semi-aquatic morphologies/environments?

Could this be because they are fairly hardy and can specialize with minimal morphological change?

This is interesting when thinking about the changing atmospheric chemistry during this time.

Gene loss makes sense in terms of evolution because why would a plant use energy on genes that are no longer necessary for its survival? I'm not sure if this is correct, just a thought. Would gene loss reduce energy expenditure in this circumstance?

This makes sense because the parasitic plant is dependent on a host for a large portion of its energy consumption/production.

I wonder if we would see similar effects in certain organisms that participating in symbiotic relationships?

I find this very interesting. These photoreceptors for various light spectrums have become so specialized and essential throughout the life cycles of plants.

In general, this really does seem like a challenging field with a near infinite number of outcomes.

To fully understand something one must know its origin and be able conceptualize its development (evolution).

It seems like the more evolved and complicated a genome is, the greater the risk of complication.

I feel that human sexual selection and reproductive success has strayed from being fitness based and has become more complicated and emotional.

I seems that newer, more finite genes are more susceptible to alterations that are negative or less beneficial for survival. I think that this is because of our more recent evolution and human's modern natural selection.

While there are many environmental contributors to illnesses, at a molecular level, there are also many genetic pre-disposals that have been passed down over time.

This is good because evolutionary medicine covers many in-depth aspects of potential illnesses.

I get this because most things that go on with our bodies come down to genetic coding. This means that illnesses and vulnerabilities also can be traced down to genetic code.

I think that the specifics of peopling the Americas is almost untraceable.

In my opinion, it would make sense that there would be multiple waves of different populations migrating into the Americas between 11,000-3,000 years ago. If there really was only one main entry point to the Americas, it is highly unlikely that there was only one main migration of one main population of closely related individuals.

Molecular biology has helped the progression of the study of evolutionary biology for many species. One small change in genetic code can created different phenotypes that look very different even if the two individuals are very closely related. This made me think of two siblings that look very different but have the same parents.

I think that the population of the Americas is much more complicated than we know. I think that maybe we should consider some less likely but possible entrance routes.

I wonder if the people on North Sentinal Island have any significant genetic markers. They have lived on the island with no outside contact for about 55,000 years.

The migratory society of these times must make it very challenging to track original migrant lineages.

I find the geographic changes of North America over the past 20,000 years interesting.

This is expected especially with the growing number of cities and increasing population. I would like to see some more studies on urban evolution across cities, varying in area and building / population densities, in the same region.

I would like to look into species living in the forested habitats that are linearly fragmented between two opposing sides of a highway.

Interesting concept but kind of self explanatory.

I get that. In most cases urban environments are very diverse in habitat structure where forests are more consistent across an environment. In order to adapt to a more diverse habitat (urban) a population will express greater genetic diversity.

Whoops I had this exact thought in a previous annotation...

I feel like urbanization can also result in habitat fragmentation, population segregation, and divergence of phenotypic traits.

I feel like urbanization can also have the opposite effect and degrade human health because of overcrowding, disease, poverty(economic diversity), and pollution.

This is a very interesting concept to me because it has many adverse effects of different species. Some species my develop niches and succeed in urban environments while others may perish having not stood a chance. I have noticed that smaller species are the most capable of adapting to urban environments.

This is inevitable with our current population growth but there are people looking into the development of sustainable cites. For example, https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/5-green-future-cities.htm

The question of how female choice evolved makes me very curious. I wonder if the differences in hormones between males and females were the driver of this.

This would be true but all offspring are very rarely equal in terms of fitness.

I wonder if there is natural selection for the ability to make an effective selection determination for a male in females.

While the benefits of the choices based on elaborate ornaments are not obvious, they may be underlying indicators of overall fitness as mentioned in Cantarero et al.

I can see how there would be preferences by both sexes but I don't understand what makes selection preference seem greater in one sex more than the other, depending on the species.

Its interesting to see females behaving in such a competitive manor. Usually the males are the more competitive sex but this shows that sexual selection can be more complicated and that the roles can be reversed.

This makes me consider variation between individuals in a population.

Darwin's work is absolutely still relevant to modern evolutionary biology. His work was fairly accurate and it also is good insight into the development of what we know today about evolutionary biology.

This is a good question but I don't think that there is a single good answer to it. I believe that the evolution of mate choice and intensity of sexual selection varies greatly by species and intra-specific interactions within an ecosystem.

Here I believe Darwin bring up a key point in how there can be changes in a offspring's phenotype from the parents. This can happen to the point of becoming a new species even when the parents appear to share the same phenotype. It shows that there are many more factors that come into play than that meets the eye in evolution.

I find this very important when it comes to survival of the fittest, crossing, as well as niche development. This explains how the fittest of wolves that can go the longest without eating / that can feed on the largest variety of pray have the greater chances of survival. Those who cannot survive as long without eating and / or do not diversify on their pray will die off and not pass on their genes, where the more fit individuals will. But there are circumstances where crosses between fit and less fit individuals can create a moderately fit individuals that find new niches to survive like praying on farmers easy to catch (contained / condensed) live stock.

I think that this perfectly captures some explanation behind sexual selection. Some specific phenotypic traits of an organism can be more likely to attract the opposite sex and therefore make them more likely to pass on their genes. On the other hand some of these phenotypic traits have no physical benefit at all and in some cases can even make them more vulnerable it ways. This shows that there is a trade off between fitness and the ability to pass on genes via sexual selection. In the eyes of humans some phenotypic traits passed on by sexual selection can be deemed as useless.

I like how Darwin expresses how well nature preforms natural selection while keeping in mind that humans have become as, if not more efficient at selection. I believe that humans could become better at selection in terms of benefit for the natural environment, if that's what they had in mind. Unfortunately, I think that humans tend to select for our own benefit rather than the benefit of the natural world.

I find this to be a very strong statement because evolutionary biology contains many great insights into how our modern natural world has come to exist. If we look deeper into evolutionary bio. we can use its ability to "explain the living world and our place in it" find more solutions to many of our current problems. Sustainability, medicine, ...etc. are just a couple fields that can be better understood when looking into "evolutionary biology's power".