Unit 7: Natural Selection Flashcards
Fitness
- Individuals whose inherited traits confer an advantage have a better chance of surviving in a given environment and will leave more offspring
- Unequal fitness will lead to gradual changes in a population, with favorable traits accumulating over generations
- Evolutionary fitness is measured by reproductive success
- Fitness does not equal strength. Fitness depends upon the environment
- Environments can be more or less stable or fluctuating, and this affects evolutionary rate and direction
- Different genetic variations can be selected in each generation
- These gradual changes from unequal fitness may accumulate over time resulting in a new species.
Adaptions
- Higher fitness may be the result of favorable adaptations to an environment
- An adaptation is a genetic variation that is favored by selection and is manifested as a trait that provides an advantage to an organism in a particular environment
Natural Selection
- Variation exists in natural populations
- Many more offspring are born each season than can possibly survive to maturity.
- As a result, there is a struggle for existence (competition)
- Characteristics beneficial in the struggle for existence tend to become more common in the population, changing the average characteristics of the population → adaptations
- Over long periods of time, and given steady input of new variation into a population, these processes lead to the emergence of new species
- The combination of alleles that provide fitness increase in the population as organisms with the highest fitness are better able to survive and reproduce
- Over time, natural selection reduces the variation in a population as the alleles for advantageous traits increase in frequency in the gene pool
- Which traits are favored depends on the environment
- When the environment changes, which traits are advantageous can change as well
- Decreases variation
What causes an increase in variation in the population
- Mutation
- Gene flow
- Sexual reproduction
What causes an decrease in variation in the population
- Non-random mating
- Genetic drift
- Natural selection
Mutations
- Change in DNA sequence
- Might change the amino acid sequence → change the protein structure & function
- Mutations create variation
- Can make new phenotypes (ex. Dark fur in rock pocket mice)
- Changes in protein may change an organism’s phenotype and therefore its fitness
- Ex. dark fur in rock pocket mice was advantageous after volcanic eruption but not before
- Increases variation
Gene Flow
- Movement of individuals and alleles in and out of population
- Ex. seeds and pollen distributed by wind and insects
- Ex. migration of animals
- Causes genetic mixing across regions
- Can introduce new variation to a population
- Increases variation
Sexual Reproduction
- Crossing over and independent assortment during meiosis results in the production genetically unique gametes
- Random fertilization of these unique gametes result in variation among offspring
- Increases variation
Non-Random Mating
- Traits that attract mates increase reproductive success and get passed on
- Reduces the variation in population - alleles for traits that attract mates become more common in the gene pool over time
- Decreases variation
Genetic Drift
- A chance event causes a change in the population
- Founder effect - a small group leaves and starts a new colony
- Bottleneck effect - a disaster reduces a population to a small number
- Decreases genetic variation: some rare alleles may be at high frequencies and others may be missing, not due to fitness (remember the blue Fugates?)
- This is a big problem - makes it more likely the entire population will die due to an environmental change
- Ex. a bottleneck event and inbreeding from a single surviving litter has caused cheetahs to be nearly genetically identical
- Decreases variation
Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium
- Hypothetical model to measure change in allele frequency in a population
- It represents a population that is non evolving - gene frequencies will not change over time if there is no evolution!
- We expect to see NO change or no difference between expected and real gene frequencies over time
- Conditions for a population or an allele to be in H-W equilibrium (AKA for there to be NO evolution):
- Very large population (no genetic drift)
- No migration (movement in or out)
- No mutation (no genetic change)
- Random mating (no sexual selection)
- No natural selection - The law tells us that populations maintain a reservoir of variability so that if future conditions require it, the gene pool can change
- If recessive alleles were continually tending to disappear, the population would soon become homozygous
- Under Hardy-Weinberg conditions, genes that have no present selective value will nonetheless be retained.
Allele Frequency Equation
- p is the symbol for the frequency of the dominant allele
- q is the symbol for the frequency of the recessive allele
- p + q = 1
Genotype/phenotype Frequency Equation
p^2 + 2pq + q^2 = 1
How to Find Allele Frequencies when it Doesn’t say H-W
- If it doesn’t say it is H-W equilibrium then just count the alleles to find allele frequencies (it will give you the number of organisms with a specific alleles like AA or Bb)
- There are always twice the number of alleles as there are individuals in the population (every individual has two alleles for a gene)
Evidence for Evolution: Fossil Record
Evidence of extinct life preserved in rock, ice, amber, wood, etc
Evidence for Evolution: Anatomical Record
- Homologous structures - similarities in characteristics resulting from common ancestry
- Analogous structures - different internal structures but similar functions due to adaptation to similar environments
- Vestigial structures - remnants of structures that were functional in an ancestral species but have little or no function in modern species
Evidence for Evolution: Embrology
Closely related species have similar embryological development
Evidence for Evolution: Molecular Record
- All cells use ribosomes to produce proteins
- There are also similarities in biochemical processes
- Because the genetic code is universal, we can compare DNA and protein structure - closely related species have sequences that are more similar than distantly related species
- The more amino acid differences in a protein shared by different species, the more time has passed since their divergence
Selective Breeding/Artificial Selection
- Occurs when humans affect variation in other species by determining which traits should be passed on
- Contrary to natural selection when the environment influences which traits are passed on based on survival
- Ex. breeding of dogs, livestock, and crops
Selection Graphs: Disruptive Selection
- Natural selection favors the extreme phenotypes
- Can lead to speciation
- Ex: frogs that breed during different times of year
Selection Graphs: Stabilizing selection
- Natural selection favors the intermediate phenotype
- Ex: human birth weight
Speciation
- These gradual changes from unequal fitness may accumulate over time resulting in a new species. New species arise when populations do not reproduce together (no gene flow) and evolve separately over time
- Speciation occurs when populations are reproductively isolated from each other
- Reproductive barriers will prevent interbreeding
Types of speciation: - Allopatric speciation - geographic separation causes reproductive isolation
- Sympatric speciation - species live in the same area but are reproductively isolated for another reason (could be due to genetic mutation)
Selection Graphs: Directional Selection
- Natural selection favors one of the extreme phenotypes
- Happens mostly when environment changes
- Ex: peppered moth
Postzygotic Barriers (occur after a zygote forms)
- After a zygote forms from gametes of two different species, the zygote is unable to develop into a viable, fertile adult
- Reduced hybrid viability - genes of different parent species may interact and impair the hybrid’s development
- Reduced hybrid fertility - chromosomes of parents may differ in number or structure such that meiosis in hybrids may fail to produce normal gametes
- Ex. horses have 64 chromosomes, donkeys have 62, and mules have 63
- Hybrid breakdown - hybrids may be fertile and viable in first generation, but when they mate, offspring are feeble or sterile
- Ex: certain rice hybrids