Questions tagged [evolution]
Changes in the heritable attributes of populations of organisms over time. The mechanisms of evolution are mutation, migration, drift, and selection.
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Who was the first organism to see the Milky Way? [closed]
So, we know that dung beetles are able to see the Milky Way and use it for navigation purposes (mainly "to get away from the bun fight at the poo pile"). But dung beetles appear around 115-...
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Why do damaged joints or ligaments experience inflammation? Why do physiotherapists try to stop inflammation as part of the healing process?
I have had the repeated experience of going to physiotherapists with injuries to ligaments or joints and they all expressly aim to reduce inflammation.
I don’t understand this. Our mammalian (and ...
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Is there more biomass on earth today than there was in the past?
Is there more, (or less) matter on earth sequestered as a part of biological systems than there was at any(arbitrary) time in the past?
Edit:
I realise I don't have a specific question, and was ...
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Why are there no wheeled animals?
In physics, "almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few unimportant holes." (See Jolly.) Therefore, on Physics SE, people are veering off into different directions: ...
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What is the difference between orthologs, paralogs and homologs?
These three terms are often misused in the literature. Many researchers seem to treat them as synonyms. So, what is the definition of each of these terms and how do they differ from one another?
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Is there a way to measure the handicap principle?
The handicap principle is used as an explanation for some genetic traits, such as bright tails in male peacocks. However, it seems that this principle could be used to justify sexual selection of ...
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Looking for the exact text and attribution of "Evolution does not wait around" quote
I am looking for a reference for a quote that roughly said:
Evolution does not wait around. Either things happen quickly or not at all.
I thought the quote was from Carl Woese but I have gone ...
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Interpretation of narrow-sense heritability over one (using R/S = h^2)
Here is my data:
Mean height score of the total parental population: 5.2
Mean height score of selected parents (those chosen for breeding due to their higher height): 6.4
Mean height score of the ...
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How long does it take for a creature to adapt for a different diet?
For the sake of the question, let's say that a population of piscivorous birds are put in a Europe-sized box. Half of the box is sea, populated with their diet of fish and crabs and cephalopods, and ...
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If you want to understand evolution from a genetics standpoint what are some must reads be it books or textbooks?
The question basically sums it up. I'm looking for books/textbooks that explain evolution from a genetic perspective.
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Models of evolution by positive versus negative selection
I am making a program for simulating natural selection. Now, I have discovered an interesting difference between positive selection and negative selection.
Positive selection occurs when the ...
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What does it mean when observed genotype frequency is different from expected genotype frequency in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?
As I understand it, if a population is at Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, then the genotype frequencies should be $$p^2 + 2pq + q^2 = 1,$$ given the allele frequencies of $p$ and $q$, which you can figure ...
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Is there a continuum between analogous and homologous traits?
How closely-related do two species need to be for a trait they share (say, bipedalism in mammals) to count as homologous (divergently-evolved) as opposed to analogous (convergently-evolved)?
In other ...
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What "most closely related to" means in phylogenetic trees?
Here is a sample phylogenetic tree from a textbook publisher:
We often ask questions like "Which organism is most closely related to the pig, the hedgehog or the cow?" I don't like these ...
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How does a trait become heritable? [closed]
How does a trait become associated with genetic loci?
It is possible for a previously negligible trait to become heritable.
For example, some phenotypes are under sexual selection, but clearly were ...
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Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium Test Result for Merged Genotypes
I was curious if two populations are in Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium (HWE), and if they are merged, then what happens? To find out, I considered populations from the 1000 genome project data. For ...
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Why did abiogenesis only happen once?
If the "primordial soup" theory of abiogenesis is to be believed, self-reproducing organisms spontaneously arose on Earth at least 3.5 billion years ago, surprisingly soon after the Earth cooled down ...
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Question on evolution theory from Book:Origin of species
Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species ...
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Evolution of the human Y chromosome
This recent news article suggests the number of genes in human male Y chromosome has steadily been reducing in the Y chromosome for a long time and is in danger of dying out all together.
What I want ...
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Is there a program that demonstrates overall fitness will increase in a population overtime?
Of course this will not always be the case with environmental factors, but generally speaking. I'm searching for a program that shows evolution works from a statistical standpoint.
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Is there such a science in which the knowledge of biological processes (e.g., evolution) would be mathematically axiomatized and inferred (deduced)? [duplicate]
There is the following Mathematical Challenge Twenty-three
Mathematical Challenge Twenty-three: What are the Fundamental Laws of Biology?
* This question will remain front and center for the next 100 ...
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What exactly happens to animals that fail mating rituals?
Quite a few animals (usually males) participate in various mating rituals to showcase their fertility as mates. While presumably, the successful ones get a chance to mate with females, it occurred to ...
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Is it possible to live without iodine? (sea plants, seaweed or fish?)
I’ve come across a few other people asking this question on different forums such as on Quora, and Reddit…
With my current understanding, we evolved from sea creatures which is why we still need ...
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Evolution of Anoles
For context, I am currently looking at this virtual lab of Lizard Evolution by HHMI biointeractive.
Trunk anoles from an island called Iron Cay were placed in a few experimental islands filled with ...
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What was the evolutionary advantage of having seeds so large that they could only be dispersed by megafauna?
I understand that fruits like the avocado and the osange orange are so large and unwieldy that their evolutionary "intent" was to be consumed whole by megafauna that are now extinct. What I ...
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Why and how do species diverge in the same region?
I want to begin by saying thatt I'm not a student of biology, so I apologize if this is an obvious question. My question is about species in general, but I'll be focusing on hominins since I'm more ...
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Is the flesh of a fruit selected for the benefit of the sprouting seed or to attract the frugivorous seed disperser animal?
In a question about the low protein content in fruits, one answer suggests the energy, carbohydrate, and protein content in a fruit evolved to entice animal seed dispersers, not foster the sprouting ...
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Who put Cephalopoda in Mollusca?
Cephalopods are considered mollusks due to homologies such as a shell, a muscular foot, and a mantle. But, they also have closed circulatory systems, two giant eyes, and eight prehensile legs. When ...
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How could an aquatic animal’s organ evolve so it could live outside water?
How could a fish’s organs evolve so that it could one day live outside of water.
I mean did it one day fully evolve then stick its head out of the water. That would mean that all the evolution of that ...
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Reference request for the evolution of faces
We humans have faces, as well as many other animals, like cats, dogs, monkeys, etc. But there was a time on planet Earth before there were any faces in living things. I am currently very interested in ...
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How did the cardiovascular system evolve?
How has evolution created our blood, lungs and the heart?
We can't exist without blood, which transports the oxygen to all areas of our body. However, the blood needs a lung, which gives it the ...
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Has artificial selection / selective breeding ever been targeted at intelligence?
Has it ever been attempted to breed a species, for example dogs, to maximize some aspect of intelligence? I find it particularly interesting to imagine one could selectively breed dogs to be able to ...
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What causes the activation of "Late acting deleterious genes" in late age but not in young age, whose accumulation causes ageing according to Medawar?
Sir Peter Medawar proposed that aging is the byproduct of "late acting deleterious genes". Evolution is good at weeding out genetic mutations that are harmful at an young age, before the ...
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What is the mechanism by which an animal has behavioral instincts?
I understand (at a layman's level) how evolution and natural selection work in regards to anatomy. The offspring has a slight mutation that makes it a better survivor in some way -- faster, stronger, ...
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Sharks, alligators and Gould's "random walk" theory
I was thinking about Stephen Jay Gould's view on evolution as pure "random walk" / Drunkard's Walk, increasing or decreasing complexity in basically random fashion, just limited by death if an ...
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At which point does the physical change in evolution occur? [closed]
So you go from homo erectus to human for example. At which point do the actual physical changes take place. Does it happen in the embryo, is it only a change in DNA at a very early stage in the new ...
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Are mutations random?
The following claim
Mutations are random
or just the use of the expression
Random mutations
are very common among lay people.
The claim is very common among lay people. The claim is often ...
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If split peas are good for health, why didn't evolution favour humans liking split peas?
Split peas, being legumes, are a source of food unanimously considered as healthy. My question is why didn't evolution favour humans that liked the taste of split peas? And/or maybe that could eat ...
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Was there a first biological cell on earth? or a similar cell originated simultaneously around the world?
It logically follows that if life began on earth and life is cellular, then either that life began singularly or began simultaneously around the world?
What is the evidence or argument for either ...
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Are there any plants that retrieve energy from the wind?
Many trees grow in windy places, but appear to have adapted to this by developing characteristics that provide resistance to wind.
Are there any plants that appear to have been selected for the ...
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Postulate that one sex will put more resources into reproduction than the other
What is the name of the idea that because one sex will put more resources into reproduction than the other, that sex will try to minimize the number of mates (choosing the best one) and the other sex ...
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Endogenous retroviral insertions as evidence for evolutionary relationships among primates
A synopsis of a 2005 paper in PlosBiology by Yohn et al. states that:
Searching the genomes of a subset of apes and monkeys revealed that
the retrovirus had integrated into the germline of ...
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Has the speed of animals changed over time?
I am not a biologist but always had the following questions:
Evolution theory says that the fittest of the fittest pass their genes on. Perhaps an oversimplification, but this would mean that slower ...
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How to quantify the strength of social bonding between the individuals of a colony? How to compare the strength of social bonding across the species?
Consider two different species of honey bees. If I have to compare the strength of social bonding between the two species i.e. in which species, social bonding between the individuals is stronger than ...
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Why aren't leaves black?
I s'pose this is a variant of the age-old question, "Why are leaves green?" It's fairly easy to ask teh internets and find plenty of answers for that one.
I have a different but related question: ...
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Caloric Mimicry
I was thinking about natural "zero calorie" sweetners and how these compounds could come to be via evolution. I was specifically thinking about monk fruit. While artificial selection likely ...
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Can estimating the likelihood of protein sequences adopting functional enzyme folds show life is too complex for evolutionary timescales?
An acquaintance provided me with this article1. I can't understand for sure what it is about.
My acquaintance said that it proves that time for generation of even the simplest proteins is on a ...
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At what point does the capability of sexual reproduction diverge in evolution?
I am asking this question as a layman in biology: What the title is supposed to mean is, as a species evolves, say humans and chimps from its common ancestor, at what point and why are humans or ...
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Why do parasites sometimes kill their hosts?
It's bothered me for a while now. I understand why a parasitoid would do this, as it only temporarily requires the host, and that not all parasites kill their hosts.
There seems to be no evolutionary ...
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Is there a specific book or textbook that lists all of the specific concepts of the theory of evolution in one place?
By specific concepts I mean those such as Zahavian signaling, the "sexy son" hypothesis, Mendel's peas, Lamarckism etc.
Essentially I am looking for a book that helps visualize evolution in ...
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