The Basis of

Evolution
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several
powers, having been originally breathed into a few
forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has
gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity,
from so simple a beginning endless forms most
beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are
being, evolved.”

-- Charles Darwin
 What’s the Big Idea?

• Descent with Modification

– organisms are altered through descent
from an ancestor that lived in the remote
past
• Environments change
• Species change

Lecture 1-19 (HHMI) 19.3

• Descent with Modification is like a tree with
multiple branching points from a common
trunk to the tips of the youngest twigs that
represent the diversity of living organisms
Sirenia
Elephas Loxodonta Loxodonta
Hyracoidea (Manatees
maximus africana cyclotis
(Hyraxes) and relatives)
Years ago

(Asia) (Africa) (Africa)

Stegodon

Mammuthus
Mammut
Deinotherium

Platybelodon
Millions of years ago

Barytherium
Moeritherium
 Homology

• Homology
– Is the study of similar structures in
different species due to their ancestry

19.5
 Anatomical Homologies
• Homologous structures are anatomical similarities
that represent variations of a structure that was
present in a common ancestor

19.5 Human Cat Whale Bat

 • Homology in embryology (study of development)
– Reveals additional anatomical similarities
not visible in adult organisms

Pharyngeal
pouches

Post-anal
tail

Chick embryo Human embryo

19.5
 Vestigial organs
– Are remnants of structures that served
important functions in the organism’s
ancestors

Letter c in the picture indicates the undeveloped hind

19.5 legs of a baleen whale.
 • Genetic homologies
– Are generally reflected in their molecules,
their genes, and their gene products

Percent of Amino Acids That Are

Identical to the Amino Acids in a
Species
Human Hemoglobin Polypeptide

Human 100%

Rhesus monkey 95%

Mouse 87%

Chicken 69%

Frog 54%

14%
19.5 Lamprey
 Gene sequence conservation in
hemoglobin
Coding Coding Coding

INTRON

• Human
• Chimp
• Rat
EXONS
• Mouse
• Chicken 19.5 Genome Browser
 What’s the Big Idea?

• Natural Selection
– “The preservation of favorable variations
and the rejection of injurious variations I
call Natural Selection”
-- Charles Darwin

19.1-3
 What’s needed for Natural
Selection?
• Variation – differing characteristics

• Adaptation - characteristics that offer a

survival/reproductive advantage

• Selection – favoring or rejection of

certain characteristics

• Time – TIME (thousands/millions of years)

Lecture 1-26 (HHMI) 19.1
 • Observation #1: Many more offspring
are produced than survive for each
species
• Observation #2: Nonetheless,
populations tend to be stable in size
• Observation #3: Populations of species
have limited resources

• Inference #1: There is a struggle for

existence among individuals of a
population, with only a fraction of their
19.4
offspring surviving
 • Observation #4: Members of a
population vary extensively in their
characteristics
• Observation #5: Much of this variation
is heritable

19.4
• Inference #2: Survival depends in part on
inherited traits. Individuals whose inherited
traits give them a high probability of
surviving and reproducing are likely to leave
more offspring than other individuals.
• Inference #3: This unequal ability of
individuals to survive and reproduce will
lead to a gradual change in a population,
with favorable characteristics becoming
more common (natural selection).
19.4
 Artificial Selection
• Human (not nature) directed
• Demonstrates that selecting variations
can alter form over time

19.6