Portal:Evolutionary biology

The Evolutionary Biology Portal

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Introduction

Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life forms on Earth. Evolution holds that all species are related and gradually change over generations. In a population, the genetic variations affect the phenotypes (physical characteristics) of an organism. These changes in the phenotypes will be an advantage to some organisms, which will then be passed on to their offspring. Some examples of evolution in species over many generations are the peppered moth and flightless birds. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biology emerged through what Julian Huxley called the modern synthesis of understanding, from previously unrelated fields of biological research, such as genetics and ecology, systematics, and paleontology.

The investigational range of current research has widened to encompass the genetic architecture of adaptation, molecular evolution, and the different forces that contribute to evolution, such as sexual selection, genetic drift, and biogeography. Moreover, the newer field of evolutionary developmental biology ("evo-devo") investigates how embryogenesis is controlled, thus yielding a wider synthesis that integrates developmental biology with the fields of study covered by the earlier evolutionary synthesis. (Full article...)

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Dawkins in 2022

Richard Dawkins FRS FRSL (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. His 1976 book The Selfish Gene popularised the gene-centred view of evolution, as well as coining the term meme. Dawkins has won several academic and writing awards.

Dawkins is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design as well as for being a vocal atheist. Dawkins wrote The Blind Watchmaker in 1986, arguing against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker, in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided by any sentient designer. In 2006, Dawkins published The God Delusion, writing that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. He founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science in 2006. Dawkins has published two volumes of memoirs, An Appetite for Wonder (2013) and Brief Candle in the Dark (2015). (Full article...)

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The following are images from various evolutionary biology-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A mutation has caused this moss rose plant to produce flowers of different colors. This is a somatic mutation that may also be passed on in the germline. (from Mutation)
Image 2The pax-6 gene controls development of eyes of different types across the animal kingdom. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 3The lac operon. Top: repressed. Bottom: active.
1: RNA Polymerase, 2: Repressor, 3: Promoter, 4: Operator, 5: Lactose, 6–8: protein-encoding genes, controlled by the switch, that cause lactose to be digested (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 4Prodryas persephone, a Late Eocene butterfly (from Mutation)
Image 5Five types of chromosomal mutations (from Mutation)
Image 6A covalent adduct between the metabolite of benzo[a]pyrene, the major mutagen in tobacco smoke, and DNA (from Mutation)
Image 7Speciation via polyploidy: A diploid cell undergoes failed meiosis, producing diploid gametes, which self-fertilize to produce a tetraploid zygote. In plants, this can effectively be a new species, reproductively isolated from its parents, and able to reproduce. (from Speciation)
Image 8Comparison of allopatric, peripatric, parapatric and sympatric speciation (from Speciation)
Image 9Gap genes in the fruit fly are switched on by genes such as bicoid, setting up stripes across the embryo which start to pattern the body's segments. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 10Cichlids such as Haplochromis nyererei diversified by sympatric speciation in the Rift Valley lakes. (from Speciation)
Image 11Among the centipedes, all members of the Geophilomorpha are constrained by a developmental bias to have an odd number of segments, whether as few as 27 or as many as 191. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 12African pygmy kingfisher, showing coloration shared by all adults of that species to a high degree of fidelity. (from Speciation)
Image 13Homologous hox genes in such different animals as insects and vertebrates control embryonic development and hence the form of adult bodies. These genes have been highly conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 14Selection of disease-causing mutations, in a standard table of the genetic code of amino acids (from Mutation)
Image 15Gaur (Indian bison) can interbreed with domestic cattle. (from Speciation)
Image 16The distribution of fitness effects (DFE) of mutations in vesicular stomatitis virus. In this experiment, random mutations were introduced into the virus by site-directed mutagenesis, and the fitness of each mutant was compared with the ancestral type. A fitness of zero, less than one, one, more than one, respectively, indicates that mutations are lethal, deleterious, neutral, and advantageous. (from Mutation)
Image 17Rhagoletis pomonella, the hawthorn fly, appears to be in the process of sympatric speciation. (from Speciation)
Image 18Phyletic gradualism, above, consists of relatively slow change over geological time. Punctuated equilibrium, bottom, consists of morphological stability and rare, relatively rapid bursts of evolutionary change. (from Speciation)
Image 19Types of small-scale mutations (from Mutation)
Image 20A gene regulatory network (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 21Gene product distributions along the long axis of the early embryo of a fruit fly (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 22Embryology theories of Ernst Haeckel, who argued for recapitulation of evolutionary development in the embryo, and Karl Ernst von Baer's epigenesis (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 23Male Drosophila pseudoobscura (from Speciation)
Image 24Expression of homeobox (Hox) genes in the fruit fly (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 25A. Lancelet (a chordate), B. Larval tunicate, C. Adult tunicate. Kowalevsky saw that the notochord (1) and gill slit (5) are shared by tunicates and vertebrates. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 26Reinforcement assists speciation by selecting against hybrids. (from Speciation)
Image 27This figure shows a simplified version of loss-of-function, switch-of-function, gain-of-function, and conservation-of-function mutations. (from Mutation)
Image 28Mutation with double bloom in the Langheck Nature Reserve near Nittel, Germany (from Mutation)
Image 29A red tulip exhibiting a partially yellow petal due to a somatic mutation in a cell that formed that petal (from Mutation)
Image 30The structure of a eukaryotic protein-coding gene. A mutation in the protein coding region (red) can result in a change in the amino acid sequence. Mutations in other areas of the gene can have diverse effects. Changes within regulatory sequences (yellow and blue) can effect transcriptional and translational regulation of gene expression. (from Mutation)
Image 31Point mutations classified by impact on protein (from Mutation)
Image 32Turing's 1952 paper explained mathematically how patterns such as stripes and spots, as in the giant pufferfish, may arise, without molecular evidence. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)

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Credit: Commons:User:David Monniaux

Tyrannosaurus rex skull at Palais de la Découverte in Paris.

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Did you know... - show different entries

... that Lord Neaves, a judge on the supreme court of Scotland, was quoted by Charles Darwin on evolution, but attributed the concept of evolution to Lord Monboddo, not Darwin?
... that Variation and Evolution in Plants is one of the four canonical texts of the modern evolutionary synthesis and that all four texts were compiled following the authors' presentation of the Jesup Lectures at Columbia University?
... that all forms of natural speciation have taken place over the course of evolution, though it still remains a subject of debate as to the relative importance of each mechanism in driving biodiversity?

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Improve: List of prehistoric mammals, List of extinct plants, Holocene extinction event
Stubs: Acritarch | Analogy (biology) | Evolutionary arms race | Genetic erosion | Hoyle's fallacy | Macromutation | Maladaptation | Evolutionary graph theory | Evolutionary landscape | Evolutionary taxonomy | Landrace | Law of Life (more...)
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A complete list of scientific WikiProjects can be found here. See also Wikispecies, a Wikimedia project dedicated to classification of biological species.

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