Mechanisms of Evolution -I

Lecture 3
Count George-Louis Leclerc de
Buffon (1707-1788)
Natural History of Animals,
which contained a clear
statement of the possibility
of evolution
He also noticed that the legs
of certain mammals, such as
pigs, have toes that never
touch the ground and
appear to be of no use
He found it difficult to
explain the presence of these
seemingly useless small toes
and suggested that the limb
bones of mammals might all
have been inherited from a
common ancestor

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Lamarckian Evolution

Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (17441829)

First Law: A lineage of organisms could change
gradually over many generations as offspring inherited
structures that had become larger and more highly
developed as a result of continued use or, conversely,
had become smaller and less developed as a result of
lack of use.
Second Law: All the acquisitions or losses wrought by
nature on individuals, through the influence of the
environment are preserved by reproduction to the new
individuals which arise, provided that the acquired
modifications are common to both sexes

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 Darwinism
Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882)
Darwins theory rests on three observations
and one conclusion he drew from them.
Observations:
1. The reproductive rates of all organisms, even slowly
reproducing ones, are sufficiently high that populations
would quickly become enormous if death rates were not
equally high.
2. Within each type of organism, there are differences among
individuals.
3. Offspring are similar to their parents because they inherit
their parents features.
Conclusion:
1. The differences among individuals influence how well those
individuals survive and reproduce. Any traits that increase
the probability that their bearers will survive and reproduce
are passed on to their offspring and to their offsprings
offspring.
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Darwins Journey

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Darwins Finches

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 Mendelian Inheritance

The inheritance of each trait is determined by

"units" or "factors" that are passed on to
descendents unchanged
An individual inherits one such unit from each
parent for each trait
A trait may not show up in an individual but can
still be passed on to the next generation.
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 Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium

The Hardy-Weinberg Theorem deals with

Mendelian genetics
allele frequencies in a population will not change
from generation to generation.
if the allele frequencies in a population with two
alleles at a locus are p and q, then the expected
genotype frequencies are p2, 2pq, and q2. This
frequency distribution will not change from
generation to generation once a population is in
Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.

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 Hardy-Weinberg
Assumptions:
Natural selection is not acting on the locus in question (i.e.,
there are no consistent differences in probabilities of
survival or reproduction among genotypes).
Neither mutation (the origin of new alleles) nor migration
(the movement of individuals and their genes into or out
of the population) is introducing new alleles into the
population.
Population size is infinite, which means that genetic drift is
not causing random changes in allele frequencies due to
sampling error from one generation to the next. Of course,
all natural populations are finite and thus subject to drift,
but we expect the effects of drift to be more pronounced in
small than in large populations.
Individuals in the population mate randomly with respect
to the locus in question. Although non-random mating
does not change allele frequencies from one generation to
the next if the other assumptions hold.

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Evolutionary Implications of the
Hardy-Weinberg Theorem

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What is Evolution
Evolution is change in the
inherited traits of a
population through
successive generations.
When living organisms
reproduce, they pass on to
their progeny a collection of
traits.
patterns in a butterfly's
wing or the number of
scales on a crocodile or
the spots in a leopard
Changes (mutations) in
the sequence of
nucleotide bases that
make up an organism's
DNA
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Evolution does not progress
toward an ultimate or
proximate goal (Gould 1989).
Evolution is not "going
somewhere
It just describes changes in
inherited traits over time.
Occasionally, and perhaps
inevitably, this change
results in increases in
biological complexity, but to
interpret this as "progress" is
to misunderstand the
mechanism
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Mechanisms of Evolution -II

Lecture 4
Molecular Ecology

Evolutionary relationship
between species sharing the
certain molecules
Turacin (6% copper complexed to
uroporphyrin III), a naturally
occurring red pigment is found
only in birds of the Musophagidae
family
Other birds, for example, get
bright red colorations from
carotenoids
First discovered by Arthur
Church in 1839.

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Principle of polymerase chain reaction
(PCR) to amplify target DNA sequence
It is possible to take a
small sample of tissue
to obtain enough DNA
for study.
This contrasts with
earlier approaches that
often required large
amounts of DNA or
protein, which often
meant killing the
organism of study

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 Molecular Ecology: Chetahs
The development of molecular
markers has led to an explosion of
studies that have used them to answer
questions ranging from
1. relatedness among species
2. evolutionary history of populations
3. amount of genetic variation within a
species
Acinonyx jubatus, the cheetah,
4. patterns of behavior
has been shown to have low
5. how patterns of gene expression can genetic diversity
vary among closely related
populations O'Brien and his colleagues (1983)
found that the genetic diversity
among cheetahs in South Africa
has extremely low

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Species Divergence

Radio telemetry to track the migration of

animals. However, their mating behaviour
cannot be tracked using this method
Reproductive success is an indication of
fitness and, therefore, of the long-term
survival of a population a fundamental
issue in ecology
A DNA-based approach can provide much
more insight into the mating behaviors of
dispersing animals.

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Limitations of Molecular Ecology

Marker development can be time-consuming and

expensive.
While it can be beneficial that molecular ecology is
not dependent on direct observation of behaviours,
this benefit can often be a limitation
Behaviour is not directly observed, there can often be
multiple explanations for the same observed pattern
It is not practical to look at the entire genome of all
organisms, so one must look at a small subset of
markers
Hence the choice of marker may affect the pattern
observed

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Mutation for Evolution

Definition: A change in the DNA sequence of the

organism
What causes mutation
Radiation, Chemicals in the environment
Errors during DNA replication
The human genome, for example, contains over 3.1
billion bases of DNA, and each base must be
faithfully replicated for cell division to occur
About one in every 10,000,000,000 base pair is
changed
Common Failure
Substitution, Deletion, Insertion, Point duplication,

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Example: Mutation in Tropical Fishes

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Diverse Life Histories
Environmental variation
Life histories evolve in response to the environment (i.e.,
extrinsic factors) as well as to internal constraints. The
environment is continually changing, giving natural selection a
"moving target
Random Variation
Increased mortality and variability in mortality in the juvenile
period both favour the evolution of delayed reproduction,
provided that delaying reproduction increases the chance of
producing viable offspring
These variations may force short term reduction of fitness to
achieve the long term goal of survival
Vegetative dormancy in plants
Orchids produce fruits with thousands of dust seeds
Predictable Environmental Variation
Cycles are routine and repeated, and do not change
dramatically in any random or deterministic way
one genotype produces different phenotypes under different
environmental conditions

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Environmental Influences

How should organisms respond to signals

from the environment in order to develop
adaptively?
No single way of responding to signals from
the environment results in adaptation because
what environmental signals tell an organism
varies with the type of signal
Environmental signals that are accurate predictors of
future conditions
Environmental signals that are poorly correlated with
future conditions.

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 Human Evolution

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Evolution of Hominins

Features common to all primates include limber

joints, grasping hands and feet with opposable digits,
face altered for stereoscopic vision and good touch
sensitivity.
These characters probably originally evolved as
adaptations to arboreal life about 65 million years
ago.
Two major groups of primates:
Prosimians are the most basal primates, and are small,
arboreal species that move among trees by brachiating.
These include lemurs, lorises and tarsiers.
Hominoids (= apes) are within the Anthropoids, and
generally have higher brain to body weight ratios and
rely more on sight than on smell.

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Features of Hominins
Hominins probably evolved from an ancestor common with
apes and chimps about 5-7 mya.
The lineage includes Australopithecus, which shows features
intermediate between man and other anthropoids
The lineage shows evolutionary trends in five major features:
1. Bipedal posture: upright posture and two-legged walking.
2. A more juvenile facial shape, such as shorter jaws, flatter
faces and more pronounced chins
3. Increased brain size relative to body mass, with language,
symbolic thought and ability for complex tools (occurred
AFTER bipedal posture)
4. Reduced size difference between sexes, probably correlated
with a more monogamous lifestyle.
5. Family structure: increased pair-bonding between mates as
well as the period and larger extent of juvenile dependence
on parental care.

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Footprints
In 1976, members of a team led
by Mary Leakey discovered the
fossilized footprints of human
ancestors in Laetoli, Africa. The
footprints were formed 3.5
million years ago when at least
two individuals walked over
wet volcanic ash. The wet ash
hardened like cement and was
then covered by more ash
The footprints also look
remarkably like a human's. In
fact, they looked so human-like,
some scientists had a hard time
believing that they were made
by Australopithecus afarensis
(Lucy's species), the only
human ancestor known to have
lived at the time

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JGomes, SBS IITD 29
HUMAN EVOLUTION

3D Collection
Explore our 3D collection of fossils, artifacts,
primates, and other animals.
Human Fossils
From skeletons to teeth, early human fossils
have been found of more than 6,000
individuals.
Genetics
Our genes offer evidence of how closely we
are related to one another and of our species
connection with all other organisms.
Dating
The layers that contain fossils and
archeological clues can be dated by more than
a dozen techniques that use the basic
principles of physics, chemistry, and Earth
sciences. Some techniques can even estimate
the age of the ancient teeth and bones directly.

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 Neanderthals: larger eyes and
smaller brains?
Neanderthals had
larger eye sockets and
a larger brain area
devoted to sight than
in modern humans.
When the larger visual
system is subtracted
from total brain size,
our extinct cousins
actually had a smaller
rest of the brain than Homo sapiens (Cro-Magnon, left)
and Homo neanderthalensis (Amud,
did fossil Homo right): Despite having the same
sapiens. total brain volume, the large eyes of
Neanderthals suggest that less of
the brain focused on other mental
tasks.
Pearce, E., Stringer, C., Dunbar, R.I.M., 2013. New insights into differences in brain organization
between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 280,
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 Single Highly Variable Lineage
Analysis of the new skull suggests
that these early forms of the genus
Homo evolved as a single, highly
variable lineage, assigned to the
species Homo erectus
This controversial conclusion arises
from how species
originate: populations can diverge
and become independent species or
may reunite with distinctive
variations of a single species. Five
skulls already discovered at Dmanisi Newly reported Dmanisi cranium
are the oldest known fossils of the (center) is compared with scanned
genus Homo outside of Africa replicas of East African Homo erectus
(2 crania at top), Homo rudolfensis
(bottom left), and Homo habilis
(bottom right). 5 centimeter
scale. Credit: Georgian National
Museum and Fred Spoor

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 ancient artists
decorated a stretch of
limestone wall with
dozens of depictions of
human hands. They
seem to have made the
images by pressing a
hand to the wall and
then blowing red Hand stencils in El
pigment on it, creating Castillo cave 40,800
a sort of stencil years old

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 New Horizons in Evolutionary Theories
OTHER VIDEOS
http://naturedocumentaries.org/3972/hidden-
life-cell-bbc/

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