Life: origins and evolution.

Notes on slides:
Slides 2-3
Secretly, Darwin did have his own ideas about how life kicked off; he thought that life probably
began spontaneously from the chemical soup that existed as the earth began to calm down a bit
following its violent birth. He wrote to his friend oseph Hooker expressing this idea:
!"ut if #and $h% &hat a big if%' we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of
ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity etc., present that a protein compound was
chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes(
Darwin had actually hit the nail on the head, the origin of life is a problem for chemistry and
biochemists. Darwin provided an explanation for how life diversified and changed from its
origin: natural selection. )ife(s origin is a separate problem.
Slides 4-6
*n +,-. two people created Darwin(s warm little pond. Stanley /iller and Harold 0rey, working
at the 0niversity of 1hicago mixed water, methane, ammonia and hydrogen in a glass bulb and
added heat and sparks of electricity; they were trying to recreate the atmosphere that existed
during earth2s early days to test whether organic molecules such as amino acids, which are the
building blocks of proteins, could have spontaneously formed. 3hey ran the experiment for a
week and ama4ingly, when they analysed their concoction, found over +5 different types of
amino acids. &hen /iller(s old tubes were reanalysed in 6557 with new e8uipment, they
discovered they had actually created over 65%
Since +,-. researchers have continued trying to recreate the early moments of life. 9or example
it became clear that /iller and 0rey(s mixture of chemicals was not 8uite right; the early
atmosphere contained a lot of carbon dioxide and a bit of nitrogen. 3hese new experiments
created hundreds of amino acids%
Scientists are now piecing together the first life originated, and are working out how the genetic
code and the first cells formed. #see website for more details'.
3he important point to note is that as soon as a molecule began replicating itself natural selection
could come into play. So how does natural selection work:
Slides 7-16
Darwin(s work on evolution developed - theories which linked together to explain how life
evolves.
Darwin(s five theories were:
+. Evolution: species come and go through time, while they exist they change.
6. Common descent: organisms are descended from one, or several common ancestors and
have diversified from this original stock
.. Species multiply: the diversification of life involves populations of one species diverging
until they become two separate species; this has probably occurred billions of times on
earth%
;. Gradualism: evolutionary change occurs through incremental small changes within
populations; new species are not created suddenly.
-. Natural selection: evolutionary change occurs through variation between individuals;
some variants give the individual an extra survival probability.
His theory of natural selection was the first mechanism to effectively explain how evolution
happened.
<atural selection was Darwin(s most novel and revolutionary idea, but in truth #like all the best
ideas' it is very simple. Despite its simplicity, since the publication of the theory right up until
today, it has widely been misunderstood. =rnst /ayr, in his book One Long Argument #+,,+'
provides a useful way of breaking down the process into >ust five facts and three inferences, or
conclusions, drawn from the five facts; they can be linked in a flow diagram:
3he first inference is drawn from three facts which Darwin observed in the natural world around
him. He saw that organisms produce more offspring than is re8uired to replace themselves, so
population si4es should increase rapidly #think about the number of frogspawn laid each year, or
how many eggs a spider lays'. 3hat(s fact one: a fancy word for this over?reproduction is !super
fecundity(. However Darwin saw for himself, and confirmed his observation with others, that
population numbers tend to stay at about the same level #you don(t see a doubling of the number
of frogs or mice in your garden each year do you:': that(s fact two. &hat accounts for this
disparity: Darwin found the answer with another fact: resources, such as food, water or places to
sleep or mate, are limited. @ ma>or influence on Darwin observing this fact was his reading the
work of 3homas /althus who published a paper stating that the human population was
increasing at a rapid pace and would soon run out of food, water and space. 3hese are three
simple facts which Darwin put together to draw a simple conclusion: individuals compete with
each other for scarce resources.
<ext, Darwin made two other observations about individuals. 9irst he had come to the
conclusion through his work on the H.M.S. Beagle, when he was working on barnacles and later
pigeons, that individuals are uni8ue and that individuals vary in almost every aspect: that(s fact
four, and you only need to take a cursory glance round a group of people to see that it is true%
9inally fact five: Darwin had taken to breeding pigeons to investigate variability further. He
performed many crosses between different breeds of fancy pigeons to look at whether their
offspring had the same variations. He also collected lots of observations from various animal and
plant breeders to help him draw out the conclusion that these individual differences are heritable:
they are passed on from parent to offspring.
3he next two inferences demonstrate Darwin(s genius. Darwin could see that if individuals must
compete, and if they are all uni8ue, some individuals will have variations which give them a
survival boost so they will have more opportunity to reproduce and leave a greater number of
offspring. 3hese offspring will inherit the variations which made their parents successful, so they
too will have an advantage. $ver time these successful variantions will spread through the
population A the population will change: that is evolution% Simpler than it sounds, isn(t it:
Slides 17-28
<atural selection tells us how any mutation which helps an organism to survive will spread
through a population. @n individual which possess the advantageous mutation will have more
offspring than the average for the population, so natural selection favours that mutation. $ver
time, even if it is only a subtle advantage, the mutation can spread through to fixation A so all
individuals in a population possess that advantage. *f a new mutation occurs which offers an
advantage it too can spread and so on. $ver many generations very small changes can sum up to
produce big effects.
*f a mutation occurs which decreases an organisms chances of survival or reproduction that
organism will, on average, have less offspring than the rest of the population. <atural selection
acts against that mutation and it will remain at a low fre8uency or be purged from the population.
Slides 29-31
*n order to leave an evolutionary legacy survival is not enough. *ndividuals must also reproduce.
$ver ,5B of species reproduce sexually, meaning two individuals from each sex must mate in
order to produce offspring. Ceproduction is expensive and can exert an additional evolutionary
pressure. Darwin defined this pressure as sexual selection. Sexual selection operates through
some members of a species having an advantage over others in terms of mating. *t is the
selection for traits that are solely concerned with increasing the mating success of an individual.
Slides 32-35
Sexual selection can act because sex has costs associated with it and because males and females
adopt different strategies to deal with those risks. 3ypically males opt for 8uantity, they produce
many, many small gametes #sperm' and are often not very choosey about who they mate with.
9emales on the other hand usually produce a lot less gametes #eggs' but these tend to be a lot
bigger, so they re8uire a larger energetic investment. $n top of this many female animals will
protect or feed their young so the female investment becomes even larger. "ecause they are
putting so much more energy into each offspring than males, it pays for females to be choosy
about who they mate with, whilst males have to compete with each other for females.
Slides 36-38
$ne product of this is that males are often very showy A they may have colourful displays or
special mating behaviors. /ales use these displays to show to the females how fit and strong
they are. Sexual selection acts to increase the prevalence of traits which are honest indicators of a
males health or fitness. @t the same time sexual selection acts on the females such that they only
mate with the males with the best displays A these males are the healthiest so the females
offspring benefit from the !good genes( of the father.
@nother product of sexual selection is male weaponry. $ften males will compete with each other
for access to females, or to areas of territory that females use. 3his is very costly as the
weaponry re8uires energy to grow and the act of combat may result in in>ury. However for the
male that wins the battle and gets access to the females the advantage far out weights the risk. So
sexual selection acts to enhance a male(s weaponry whilst natural selection stops the cost from
becoming too large.
/ales may also build elaborate nests A this is another way of showing off to females or providing
them with resources that will increase their offspring(s survival.
Slide 39
<atural and sexual selection act on the phenotypes #characteristics or traits' of an individual.
However the evolution of phenotypes is produced by changes in the genetic code A in D<@.
=ach individual has a genome which acts as a blueprint for development. 3he genome is made up
of D<@ which encodes protein?coding genes and the instructions on how and when to use those
genes. =ach parent passes on one copy of its genetic material to each offspring. Sometimes
during the formation of eggs and sperm mutations may occur during one of the many cell
divisions. @t each cell division the D<@ is copied so that each daughter cell has an e8ual
compliment of D<@. During this copying process sometimes mistakes are made and mutations
are introduced. 3hese are passed on to the offspring. *f these mutations occur in a stretch of D<@
which affects what protein is made or how or when it is used this can cause changes in
development and eventually in the phenotype shown by an individual.
*f this change increases the chance of an individual surviving or reproducing natural selection
will favour that phenotype and therefore the mutation in the D<@ which produced that change,
the mutation will spread through the population. &e can se8uence the D<@ of different species
and see where the differences in their D<@ se8uences occur and relate these to phenotypic
differences. #see the evidence and evolution slides for more information'.
Slide 40
1onclusions