Introduc)on

Major advances

Rare
Fundamental changes

Charles Darwin

All organisms share common ancestry

Descended from previous species

Organisms t with its environment

Result of natural selec)on
Gradual process

Forms beDer suited to environment increase in frequency in a popula)on

over suciently long periods of )me

Each were independently suggested before

Darwins evolu)onary theory:

Paradigm shiK

How all living things came to be

Natural explana)on

Evolu)onary Biology
Evolu)onary biology
Origin, maintenance, and diversity of life

Descent with modica)on

Ancestral history
Modica)ons

Natural selec)on
One of most important processes
Gene)c muta)ons
Phenotypic changes
Fitness
Rela)ve survival rates and reproduc)ve success
Increase, decrease, no eect

Major transi)ons

Overview
Detec)ve story

Selec)ve Breeding
Choosing of parental ma)ngs
Ar)cial selec)on
Human directed selec)ve breeding
Counterpart to natural selec)on

Selec)ve Breeding
Evolu)onary arms race between pes)cides
and the insects they are targe)ng
Natural selec)on (NOT ar)cial) favors
pes)cide resistance insects
Not deliberately selected for by humans

An)bio)c Resistance
Result of natural selec)on
Can only be understood by evolu)onary biology

Bacteria evolve very quickly

Reproduce quickly, large popula)on sizes
An)bio)cs are a very strong selec)ve pressure

Tree of Life
Tree of life
Map of history of life
Phylogene)c tree
Evolu)onary
rela)onships of all
known life
Extant and ex)nct
Tip = species
Branch points =
divergence events

Ex)nc)on
Loss of a species
Part of tree gone forever

Conserva)on
Preserve the maximum amount of phylogene)c
diversity

Conserva)on
Lake Victoria Cichlids
Evolu)onary radia)on
14,000 years
400 species

Low loss of
phylogene)c diversity
~3 million years

Bad idea?
Hotspots of
evolu)onary change
(habitats and species)
Future source of
specia)on

Approaches to Study Evolu)on

Generate and test alterna)ve hypotheses
Empirical and theore)cal research

Empirical
Observa)ons
Fossil record, DNA sequences, behavior, etc.

Manipula)ons
Change one part of a system to test specic hypothesis
Correla)ons and causality

Chimp Human Evolu)on

Darwin and Huxley
Humans share common
ancestor with great apes
Compara)ve anatomy
Shape and structure of bones

Modern Molecular Gene)cs

Supports Darwin and Huxleys
hypothesis
Chromosome number and
arrangement
Overall sequence divergence

Chimp Human Evolu)on

Neutral muta)ons
Changes that have no eect on tness
Baseline value of dierences between
genomes
Looked for genes and clusters of genes with
higher rates of evolu)on
Correlated increased rates with alleles of
known func)on
Clusters associated with disease resistance
and sperm produc)on

Chimp Human Evolu)on

Chimp Human Evolu)on

How possible with only 1.3% dierence?
Does major evolu)onary change occur as a result
of a large number of muta)ons with modest
eects, or a small number of muta)ons that
have large eects?
Gene expression
What genes turned on and o and when

Brain

Small dierences

Ma)ng systems

Way in which reproduc)ve behaviors are structured

in a popula)on
Major dierences

Sperm Alloca)on
Sperm alloca)on
Amount of sperm
transferred during a
ma)ng act

Chickens
Females store sperm
Females mate with
mul)ple males
Males mate with
mul)ple females
Sperm from dierent
males compete
Sperm compe))on

Sperm Alloca)on
Natural selec)on favors sperm alloca)on

Theore)cal Approaches
Involve mathema)cal models
Understand how complicated systems work
Make:
Assump)ons to focus on a specic detail
Future predic)ons and inferences

Sex Ra)o
Why is the sex ra)o ~equal and is it maintained by natural
selec)on?
Mammals
Chromosomal sex determina)on

XX (female), XY (male)
Roughly half of the fer)lized embryos are XX and XY

Fisher model

Develop a model that expresses important features but removes the

unimportant details
Diet, habitat, lifespan ignored
Sex ra)o under gene)c control
Necessary for natural selec)on

Parents inuence the sex ra)o of their ospring

Aect rendered in ospring of ospring

Eect not rendered in in survival of ospring but rather the reproduc)ve success of
their ospring

Fitness of male depends on frequency of males in popula)on

Fitness of female depends on frequency of females in popula)on
Model suggests that if the 1:1 ra)o becomes unbalanced the ra)o will rapidly
be restored

Sex Ra)o
Fisher model example
Male births are less common than females
Males therefore have beDer ma)ng prospects
Parents that produce more males will on average
have more grandchildren
Genes for male-producing tendencies spread
Male births become more common

As 1:1 ra)o approached advantage of producing

males reduced
Vice-versa with females also true

Sex Ra)o
Samoan islands
buDeries
1:1 sex ra)o destroyed by
Wolbachia
Kills mostly male embryos

Rebounded rapidly
Gene)c change in
buDeries that produced
as many males as females
Experimentally veried

Theory and Experiment

Does theory come before of aKer empirical
work?
Depends
Observa)on/experiment suggests model
development
Theory precedes experimental work
Feedback loop develops