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The Academy's Evolution Site

Biology is a key concept in biology. The Academies are involved in helping those who are interested in science understand evolution theory and how it can be applied throughout all fields of scientific research.

This site provides students, teachers and general readers with a range of educational resources on evolution. It includes key video clip from NOVA and WGBH produced science programs on DVD.

Tree of Life

The Tree of Life is an ancient symbol that represents the interconnectedness of all life. It is used in many spiritual traditions and cultures as symbolizing unity and love. It can be used in many practical ways as well, including providing a framework to understand the evolution of species and how they respond to changing environmental conditions.

The first attempts to depict the biological world were built on categorizing organisms based on their metabolic and physical characteristics. These methods, which relied on the sampling of different parts of living organisms or short fragments of their DNA, greatly increased the variety of organisms that could be represented in the tree of life2. These trees are largely composed of eukaryotes, while bacterial diversity is vastly underrepresented3,4.

By avoiding the need for direct experimentation and observation, genetic techniques have made it possible to represent the Tree of Life in a more precise way. Particularly, molecular methods allow us to build trees by using sequenced markers like the small subunit of ribosomal RNA gene.

The Tree of Life has been dramatically expanded through genome sequencing. However, there is still much diversity to be discovered. This is particularly true for microorganisms, which are difficult to cultivate and are usually only present in a single sample5. A recent study of all genomes known to date has produced a rough draft version of the Tree of Life, including a large number of archaea and bacteria that have not been isolated, and their diversity is not fully understood6.

This expanded Tree of Life can be used to assess the biodiversity of a specific area and determine if particular habitats require special protection. This information can be utilized in many ways, including finding new drugs, fighting diseases and improving crops. This information is also extremely valuable to conservation efforts. It helps biologists determine the areas most likely to contain cryptic species with important metabolic functions that could be at risk of anthropogenic changes. While funding to protect biodiversity are important, the most effective method to protect the world's biodiversity is to equip the people of developing nations with the necessary knowledge to take action locally and encourage conservation.

Phylogeny

A phylogeny (also known as an evolutionary tree) illustrates the relationship between species.  에볼루션 바카라  can create a phylogenetic diagram that illustrates the evolution of taxonomic groups using molecular data and morphological similarities or differences. Phylogeny is essential in understanding biodiversity, evolution and genetics.

A basic phylogenetic Tree (see Figure PageIndex 10 Identifies the relationships between organisms with similar traits and evolved from an ancestor with common traits. These shared traits can be analogous or homologous. Homologous traits are the same in terms of their evolutionary path. Analogous traits could appear like they are however they do not have the same ancestry. Scientists group similar traits into a grouping referred to as a the clade. Every organism in a group share a characteristic, like amniotic egg production. They all came from an ancestor that had these eggs. A phylogenetic tree can be constructed by connecting the clades to determine the organisms who are the closest to one another.

To create a more thorough and accurate phylogenetic tree scientists make use of molecular data from DNA or RNA to determine the relationships among organisms. This information is more precise and provides evidence of the evolution history of an organism. Researchers can utilize Molecular Data to calculate the evolutionary age of living organisms and discover the number of organisms that have an ancestor common to all.

Phylogenetic relationships can be affected by a number of factors, including the phenotypic plasticity. This is a kind of behavior that changes due to particular environmental conditions. This can cause a particular trait to appear more similar in one species than another, obscuring the phylogenetic signal. This problem can be addressed by using cladistics, which incorporates a combination of homologous and analogous features in the tree.

In addition, phylogenetics helps determine the duration and speed at which speciation occurs. This information can help conservation biologists make decisions about the species they should safeguard from the threat of extinction. Ultimately, it is the preservation of phylogenetic diversity that will lead to an ecosystem that is complete and balanced.

Evolutionary Theory

The central theme in evolution is that organisms change over time as a result of their interactions with their environment. Many theories of evolution have been proposed by a wide range of scientists such as the Islamic naturalist Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-1274) who believed that an organism would evolve slowly according to its requirements, the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778) who developed the modern hierarchical taxonomy, as well as Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) who suggested that the use or misuse of traits can cause changes that could be passed on to the offspring.

In the 1930s & 1940s, ideas from different areas, including genetics, natural selection and particulate inheritance, merged to form a modern theorizing of evolution. This defines how evolution occurs by the variation of genes in the population and how these variants change over time as a result of natural selection. This model, which is known as genetic drift or mutation, gene flow and sexual selection, is a key element of the current evolutionary biology and can be mathematically described.

Recent discoveries in the field of evolutionary developmental biology have demonstrated that variations can be introduced into a species via genetic drift, mutation, and reshuffling genes during sexual reproduction, and also by migration between populations. These processes, as well as others such as directional selection or genetic erosion (changes in the frequency of an individual's genotype over time) can result in evolution, which is defined by changes in the genome of the species over time, and also the change in phenotype over time (the expression of that genotype within the individual).

Students can better understand the concept of phylogeny by using evolutionary thinking throughout all areas of biology. A recent study by Grunspan and colleagues, for instance demonstrated that teaching about the evidence supporting evolution increased students' understanding of evolution in a college-level biology course. For more information about how to teach evolution read The Evolutionary Power of Biology in All Areas of Biology or Thinking Evolutionarily: a Framework for Infusing Evolution into Life Sciences Education.

Evolution in Action

Traditionally scientists have studied evolution by looking back--analyzing fossils, comparing species, and studying living organisms. Evolution isn't a flims event; it is an ongoing process. Viruses evolve to stay away from new drugs and bacteria evolve to resist antibiotics. Animals alter their behavior in the wake of a changing environment. The changes that occur are often evident.

It wasn't until the 1980s that biologists began realize that natural selection was also in action. The key is that various traits have different rates of survival and reproduction (differential fitness), and can be passed down from one generation to the next.

In the past when one particular allele, the genetic sequence that determines coloration--appeared in a population of interbreeding organisms, it might quickly become more prevalent than other alleles. As time passes, this could mean that the number of moths that have black pigmentation in a population could increase. The same is true for many other characteristics--including morphology and behavior--that vary among populations of organisms.

Observing evolutionary change in action is easier when a species has a rapid turnover of its generation such as bacteria. Since 1988 the biologist Richard Lenski has been tracking twelve populations of E. coli that descended from a single strain. samples from each population are taken every day and more than 500.000 generations have passed.

Lenski's research has shown that a mutation can profoundly alter the speed at the rate at which a population reproduces, and consequently the rate at which it evolves. It also shows that evolution takes time, something that is difficult for some to accept.

Microevolution can be observed in the fact that mosquito genes that confer resistance to pesticides are more common in populations where insecticides have been used. This is due to the fact that the use of pesticides creates a pressure that favors those who have resistant genotypes.

The rapid pace at which evolution can take place has led to a growing recognition of its importance in a world shaped by human activities, including climate change, pollution and the loss of habitats that hinder many species from adapting. Understanding the evolution process will aid you in making better decisions about the future of our planet and its inhabitants.