Outline for Chapter 11

Define the following terms

Return of a Killer (Section 11.1, pp 252-254)

Antibiotics
Drugs that kill microbes - including bacteria
A chemical that kills or disables bacteria

Antibiotic-resistant
Ones that cannot be cured by the standard drug treatment
Characteristic of certain bacteria
Physiological characteristic that permits them to survive in the presence of particular
antibiotics

Natural Selection Causes Evolution (Section 11.2, pp 254-260)
Figures to review: 11.6, 11.7, 11.8, 11.9, 11.11, 11.12

Natural selection
One of 2 ideas from Darwin
Process by which individuals with certain traits have greater survival and reproduction
that individuals who lack these traits
Results in an increase in the frequency of successful alleles and a decrease in the
frequency of unsuccessful ones
Explains how organisms evolved

4 observations about natural selection
Individuals within Populations Vary
o Variations in species
o Examples:
Humans - shapes, sizes, colors, facial features
Gray Wolves - black, tawny, reddish
Amount of caffeine produced in the seeds of a coffee plant
Some of the Variation among Individuals Can Be Passed on the Their Offspring
o Example: Pigeons with fan tails are more likely to have offspring with fan tails
than were pigeons with straight tails
Populations of Organisms Produce More Offspring Than Will Survive
o Examples:
Trees produce millions of seeds every summer but a small fraction
survive to germinate and only a few live for more than a year or two
Elephants produce slowly but even at that rate, after about 500 years a
family would have more than 15 million members


Survival and Reproduction Are Not Random
o Some variants in a population have a higher likelihood of survival and
reproduction than others

Fitness
The survival and reproduction of one variant compared to others in the same population


Adaptation
Traits that increase an individuals relative fitness in a particular environment

Natural selection since Darwin (Section 11.3, pp 260-266)
Figures to review: 11.13, 11.16; Table 11.1

3 Subtleties/Misunderstandings of Natural Selection
Artificial Selection
o Selection imposed by human choice
o Humans deliberately control the survival and reproduction of individual plants
and animals to change the characterists of the population
o Example: Great variety of domestic dogs
Natural Selection in the Lab
o Examination of whether populations living in artificially manipulated laboratory
environments change over time
o Example: Fruit flies place in environments containing different concentrations of
alcohol (Most process alcohol slowly but about 10% prossess an enzyme that
allows those flies to metabolize alcohol twice as fast)
Natural Selection in Wild Populations
o Example: Change in bill size in finches in response to a drought - Survivor tended
to be those with the largest bills, which could more easily handle the tough
seeds that were available in the dry environment

Directional Selection
Causes the population traits to move in a particular direction
Typically the type that leads to change in a population over time
o Example: Fruit flies and alcohol example

Stabilizing Selection
The extreme variants in a population are selected against
The traits of the population stay the same
The average variant in the population
o Example: In babies, really small and really large babies have a lower survival
rate, causing the average birth weight to relatively stable

Diversifying Selection


Common variant is lowest fitness
Causes the evolution of a population consisting of two or more variants
Common within a species if different subpopulations are experiences different
environmental conditions
Successful traits in one environment are not so successful in another






Natural selection and human health (Section 11.4, pp 266-270)
Figures to review: 11.17, 11.18

Combination Drug Therapy
Commonly used on diseases for which resistance to a single druc can develop rapidly
The greater the number of drugs used, the greater the number of changes that are
required in the bacterial genome for resistance to develop
o Example of disease: HIV