Biological evolution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Briggs ◽  
Hans Halvorson ◽  
Andrew Steane
Keyword(s):  
Design Education ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
Living Things ◽  
History Of ◽  
Informed Opinion ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Insight Into

The chapter discusses the history of life on Earth, and the lessons to be learned from the neo-Darwinian synthesis of evolutionary biology. The long and complex sequence of events in the evolutionary history of life on Earth requires considered interpretation. The neo-Darwinian synthesis is well-supported by evidence and gives rich insight into this process, but does not itself furnish a complete explanation or understanding of living things. This is because a process of exploration can only explore; it cannot fully dictate and can only partially constrain what type of thing will be found. What is found is constrained by other considerations, such as what is possible, and what can make sense. A brief critique of some of Richard Dawkins’ work is given, and also of the movement known as ‘Intelligent Design’. Education policy is well served by a fair appraisal of informed opinion in this area.

How Virtue Was Born

Gerontology ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin A. Nowak ◽  
Karl Sigmund
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
European Forum ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Life On Earth

This paper summarizes the Opening Lecture of the European Forum Alpbach 2017 in Tyrol/Austria (https://www.alpbach.org/de/). It deals with the evolution of cooperation throughout the history of life on Earth, and in particular human cooperation based on partnership. It emphasizes the role of institutions providing incentives for cooperation, and the role of praise and blame in guiding our actions. This helps for a better understanding of the social contract, based on evolutionary biology and psychology.

Adaptation

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan B. Losos
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Central Focus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of

Adaptation—the fit of organisms to their environments—has been a central focus in scientific research for centuries, predating even the rise of evolutionary biology. At its core, the study of adaptation is the study of natural selection—how is it that populations become so well suited to survive and reproduce in the environment in which they occur? Nonetheless, the topic of adaptation has many wrinkles and nuances. Even the definition of adaptation is not agreed on by all. The manner in which adaptations evolve (or fail to evolve) and the consequences they have for the evolutionary history of a lineage have been the subjects of considerable scientific research and discussion for more than a century.

The amphibamiform Nanobamus macrorhinus from the early Permian of Texas

2019 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 366-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan M. Gee ◽  
Robert R. Reisz
Keyword(s):  
Phylogenetic Analysis ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Phylogenetic Position ◽  
Early Permian ◽  
Larval Form ◽  
Terrestrial Environments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractNanobamus macrorhinus Schoch and Milner, 2014 is a small amphibamiform temnospondyl from the early Permian Arroyo Formation of Texas. It is most readily characterized by an elongate and partially subdivided naris. This condition is superficially reminiscent of that seen in the coeval trematopids, the group to which N. macrorhinus was originally referred to under an interpretation of the holotype as a larval form. This was discounted by later workers, but the amphibamiform affinities of the specimen were not formalized until recently. The specimen has never been described in the context of its amphibamiform affinities and remains poorly characterized, never having been sampled in a phylogenetic analysis. Here we present a complete, updated osteological description of N. macrorhinus, including an improved characterization of its unique mosaic of plesiomorphic and apomorphic features and clarification of the taxon's autapomorphies. Our analysis of the taxon's phylogenetic position within Amphibamiformes shows that N. macrorhinus was recovered as diverging after basal amphibamiforms, e.g., the micropholids, and before derived amphibamiforms, e.g., the amphibamids. This is supported by the unique mixture of retained plesiomorphies, e.g., nonforeshortened postparietals and an oval choana, and apomorphies, e.g., a narrow interorbital region and slender palatal rami of the pterygoid. These results reflect the complexity of terrestrial amphibamiform diversity and provide further insight into the evolutionary history of the lissamphibian stem in terrestrial environments.

scholarly journals New thinking: the evolution of human cognition

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1599) ◽  
pp. 2091-2096 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Heyes
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Primate Species ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Research ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Vast Range

Humans are animals that specialize in thinking and knowing, and our extraordinary cognitive abilities have transformed every aspect of our lives. In contrast to our chimpanzee cousins and Stone Age ancestors, we are complex political, economic, scientific and artistic creatures, living in a vast range of habitats, many of which are our own creation. Research on the evolution of human cognition asks what types of thinking make us such peculiar animals, and how they have been generated by evolutionary processes. New research in this field looks deeper into the evolutionary history of human cognition, and adopts a more multi-disciplinary approach than earlier ‘Evolutionary Psychology’. It is informed by comparisons between humans and a range of primate and non-primate species, and integrates findings from anthropology, archaeology, economics, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, philosophy and psychology. Using these methods, recent research reveals profound commonalities, as well striking differences, between human and non-human minds, and suggests that the evolution of human cognition has been much more gradual and incremental than previously assumed. It accords crucial roles to cultural evolution, techno-social co-evolution and gene–culture co-evolution. These have produced domain-general developmental processes with extraordinary power—power that makes human cognition, and human lives, unique.

scholarly journals Ancient origins and multiple appearances of carotenoid-pigmented feathers in birds

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1788) ◽  
pp. 20140806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Thomas ◽  
Kevin J. McGraw ◽  
Michael W. Butler ◽  
Matthew T. Carrano ◽  
Odile Madden ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Raman Spectroscopy ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Carotenoid Pigments ◽  
Biological Functions ◽  
The Family ◽  
Family Level ◽  
History Of ◽  
Living Species ◽  
Insight Into

The broad palette of feather colours displayed by birds serves diverse biological functions, including communication and camouflage. Fossil feathers provide evidence that some avian colours, like black and brown melanins, have existed for at least 160 million years (Myr), but no traces of bright carotenoid pigments in ancient feathers have been reported. Insight into the evolutionary history of plumage carotenoids may instead be gained from living species. We visually surveyed modern birds for carotenoid-consistent plumage colours (present in 2956 of 9993 species). We then used high-performance liquid chromatography and Raman spectroscopy to chemically assess the family-level distribution of plumage carotenoids, confirming their presence in 95 of 236 extant bird families (only 36 family-level occurrences had been confirmed previously). Using our data for all modern birds, we modelled the evolutionary history of carotenoid-consistent plumage colours on recent supertrees. Results support multiple independent origins of carotenoid plumage pigmentation in 13 orders, including six orders without previous reports of plumage carotenoids. Based on time calibrations from the supertree, the number of avian families displaying plumage carotenoids increased throughout the Cenozoic, and most plumage carotenoid originations occurred after the Miocene Epoch (23 Myr). The earliest origination of plumage carotenoids was reconstructed within Passeriformes, during the Palaeocene Epoch (66–56 Myr), and not at the base of crown-lineage birds.

scholarly journals Approximating the coalescent under facultative sex

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Hartfield
Keyword(s):  
Population Size ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Sampling Strategies ◽  
Effective Population ◽  
Sexual Species ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mitotic Gene Conversion ◽  
Evolutionary Consequences ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Coalescent Time

AbstractGenome studies of facultative sexual species, which can either reproduce sexually or asexually, are providing insight into the evolutionary consequences of mixed reproductive modes. It is currently unclear to what extent the evolutionary history of facultative sexuals’ genomes can be approximated by the standard coalescent, and if a coalescent effective population size Ne exists. Here, I determine if and when these approximations can be made. When sex is frequent (occurring at a frequency much greater than 1/N per reproduction per generation, for N the actual population size), the underlying genealogy can be approximated by the standard coalescent, with a coalescent Ne ≈ N. When sex is very rare (at frequency much lower than 1/N), approximations for the pairwise coalescent time can be obtained, which is strongly influenced by the frequencies of sex and mitotic gene conversion, rather than N. However, these terms do not translate into a coalescent Ne. These results are used to discuss the best sampling strategies for investigating the evolutionary history of facultative sexual species.

Evolution

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Dunbar
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Core Theory ◽  
History Of ◽  
Evolutionary Science ◽  
Microscopic World ◽  
The Many ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
And Behavior

Evolution is one of the most important processes in life. It not only explains the detailed history of life on earth, but its scope also extends into many aspects of our own contemporary behavior-who we are and how we got to be here, our psychology, our cultures-and greatly impacts modern advancements in medicine and conservation biology. Perhaps its most important claim for science is its ability to provide an overarching framework that integrates the many life sciences into a single unified whole. Yet, evolution-evolutionary biology in particular-has been, and continues to be, regarded with suspicion by many. Understanding how and why evolution works, and what it can tell us, is perhaps the single most important contribution to the public perception of science. This book provides an overview of the basic theory and showcases how widely its consequences reverberate across the life sciences, the social sciences and even the humanities. In this book, Robin Dunbar uses examples drawn from plant life, animals and humans to illustrate these processes. Evolutionary science has important advantages. Most of science deals with the microscopic world that we cannot see and invariably have difficulty understanding, but evolution deals with the macro-world in which we live and move. That invariably makes it much easier for the lay audience to appreciate, understand and enjoy. Evolution: What Everyone Needs to Know® takes a broad approach to evolution, dealing both with the core theory itself and its impact on different aspects of the world we live in, from the iconic debates of the nineteenth century, to viruses and superbugs, to human evolution and behavior.

Molecular phylogeography of Thymus herba-barona (Lamiaceae): Insight into the evolutionary history of the flora of the western Mediterranean islands

Taxon ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 1295-1305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arántzazu Molins ◽  
Gianluigi Bacchetta ◽  
Marcela Rosato ◽  
Josep A. Rosselló ◽  
Maria Mayol
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary History ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
Mediterranean Islands ◽  
Molecular Phylogeography ◽  
History Of ◽  
Insight Into

The Making and Development of E. N. Mirzoyan’s Evolutionary Concept (In Commemoration of the 90 th Anniversary of His Birth)

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 544
Author(s):  
Marianna Kozlova
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Evolutionary Morphology ◽  
Living Matter ◽  
Evolutionary Physiology ◽  
Evolutionary Theories ◽  
Physiology And Biochemistry ◽  
Long Time ◽  
History Of

A renowned biologist and historian of science Eduard Nikolaevich Mirzoyan would have turned 90 in April 2021. The author of over 200 publications, including 15 monographs, on the history of evolutionary morphology, evolutionary histology, evolutionary physiology and biochemistry, and evolutionary and global ecology, he was also exploring the problem of how ontogenesis and phylogenesis are related to the theoretical aspects of evolutionary biology. As a result of a long-time creative pursuit, Mirzoyan developed his own outlook on biological evolution, captured mostly in his personal archive. Analyzing the 20 th century evolutionary synthesis strategies, Mirzoyan formulated his own evolutionary concept and put forward an idea that the 21 st century evolutionists must concentrate their efforts on constructing a general theory of the living matter evolution instead of the evolutionary theories that prevailed in the 20 th century and focused on explaining the formation of species. This article is devoted to the analysis of Mizoyan’s evolutionary views.

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