Portal:Evolutionary biology

The Evolutionary Biology Portal

Introduction

Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. 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. 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 -

Lamarck argued, as part of his theory of heredity, that a blacksmith's sons inherit the strong muscles the blacksmith acquires from his work.

Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also called the inheritance of acquired characteristics or more recently soft inheritance. The idea is named after the French zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), who incorporated the classical era theory of soft inheritance into his theory of evolution as a supplement to his concept of orthogenesis, a drive towards complexity.

Introductory textbooks contrast Lamarckism with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. However, Darwin's book On the Origin of Species gave credence to the idea of heritable effects of use and disuse, as Lamarck had done, and his own concept of pangenesis similarly implied soft inheritance. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

General images -

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

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

Selected picture -

The passenger pigeon, one of several species of extinct birds, was hunted to extinction over the course of a few decades.

Did you know... -

... that the evolution of sex is a major puzzle of evolutionary biology, due to the so-called two-fold cost of sex?
... that Herbert Spencer, secretary of the Derby Philosophical Society, first suggested the term "survival of the fittest" after reading Charles Darwin's idea of evolution?
... 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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