Portal:Evolutionary biology

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 onto 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...)

Selected article -

Transmutation of species and transformism are unproven 18th and 19th-century evolutionary ideas about the change of one species into another that preceded Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. The French Transformisme was a term used by Jean Baptiste Lamarck in 1809 for his theory, and other 18th and 19th century proponents of pre-Darwinian evolutionary ideas included Denis Diderot, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Erasmus Darwin, Robert Grant, and Robert Chambers, the anonymous author of the book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Opposition in the scientific community to these early theories of evolution, led by influential scientists like the anatomists Georges Cuvier and Richard Owen, and the geologist Charles Lyell, was intense. The debate over them was an important stage in the history of evolutionary thought and influenced the subsequent reaction to Darwin's theory. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

General images -

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

Image 1The 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 2Five types of chromosomal mutations (from Mutation)
Image 3A. 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 4Types of small-scale mutations (from Mutation)
Image 5Prodryas persephone, a Late Eocene butterfly (from Mutation)
Image 6Reinforcement assists speciation by selecting against hybrids. (from Speciation)
Image 7A covalent adduct between the metabolite of benzo[a]pyrene, the major mutagen in tobacco smoke, and DNA (from Mutation)
Image 8Among 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 9Point mutations classified by impact on protein (from Mutation)
Image 10Homologous 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 11Turing'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)
Image 12A gene regulatory network (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 13Mutation with double bloom in the Langheck Nature Reserve near Nittel, Germany (from Mutation)
Image 14Phyletic 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 15Speciation 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 16The 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 17Embryology 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 18Gap 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 19A 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 20Gaur (Indian bison) can interbreed with domestic cattle. (from Speciation)
Image 21The 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 22Expression of homeobox (Hox) genes in the fruit fly (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 23This figure shows a simplified version of loss-of-function, switch-of-function, gain-of-function, and conservation-of-function mutations. (from Mutation)
Image 24Gene product distributions along the long axis of the early embryo of a fruit fly (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 25A red tulip exhibiting a partially yellow petal due to a mutation in its genes (from Mutation)
Image 26Selection of disease-causing mutations, in a standard table of the genetic code of amino acids (from Mutation)
Image 27Comparison of allopatric, peripatric, parapatric and sympatric speciation (from Speciation)
Image 28The pax-6 gene controls development of eyes of different types across the animal kingdom. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 29African pygmy kingfisher, showing coloration shared by all adults of that species to a high degree of fidelity. (from Speciation)
Image 30Cichlids such as Haplochromis nyererei diversified by sympatric speciation in the Rift Valley lakes. (from Speciation)
Image 31Male Drosophila pseudoobscura (from Speciation)
Image 32Rhagoletis pomonella, the hawthorn fly, appears to be in the process of sympatric speciation. (from Speciation)

Selected picture -

Tyrannosaurus rex

Tyrannosaurus rex skull at Palais de la Découverte in Paris.

Did you know... -

... that botanist Edgar Anderson was a founding member of the Society for the Study of Evolution and an active member of the Religious Society of Friends?
... 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?
... that maintained gene flow between two populations can also lead to a combination of the two gene pools, reducing the genetic variation between the two groups?

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