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Evolution
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several
powers, having been originally breathed into a few
forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has
gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity,
from so simple a beginning endless forms most
beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are
being, evolved.”
-- Charles Darwin
What’s the Big Idea?
Stegodon
Mammuthus
Mammut
Deinotherium
Platybelodon
Millions of years ago
Barytherium
Moeritherium
Homology
• Homology
– Is the study of similar structures in
different species due to their ancestry
19.5
Anatomical Homologies
• Homologous structures are anatomical similarities
that represent variations of a structure that was
present in a common ancestor
Pharyngeal
pouches
Post-anal
tail
Human 100%
Mouse 87%
Chicken 69%
Frog 54%
14%
19.5 Lamprey
Gene sequence conservation in
hemoglobin
Coding Coding Coding
INTRON
• Human
• Chimp
• Rat
EXONS
• Mouse
• Chicken 19.5 Genome Browser
What’s the Big Idea?
• Natural Selection
– “The preservation of favorable variations
and the rejection of injurious variations I
call Natural Selection”
-- Charles Darwin
19.1-3
What’s needed for Natural
Selection?
• Variation – differing characteristics
19.4
• Inference #2: Survival depends in part on
inherited traits. Individuals whose inherited
traits give them a high probability of
surviving and reproducing are likely to leave
more offspring than other individuals.
• Inference #3: This unequal ability of
individuals to survive and reproduce will
lead to a gradual change in a population,
with favorable characteristics becoming
more common (natural selection).
19.4
Artificial Selection
• Human (not nature) directed
• Demonstrates that selecting variations
can alter form over time
19.6