Evolution is quicker than they thought

[xoxoxoBruce]

Samoan butterflies quickly evolve to avoid extinction .
It appears that evolution can take place much faster than the scientists realized before now.

They said the butterflies' tale is the fastest example of natural selection observed to date and shows evolution can happen quickly when the stakes are high.

snip

"This is one of the most clear and fastest cases of evolution under natural selection," said Sylvain Charlat of University College London, whose study appears in the journal Science.

snip

What is clear, they said, is the repopulation of male butterflies illustrates rapid natural selection, a process in which traits that help a species survive become more prominent in a population.

Natural selection typically moves very slowly, sometimes over hundreds of years, they said, but when under severe attack, this process was accelerated.

The more we know, the more we know we don't know.

Not macro, not micro... just evolution.

[piercehawkeye45]

I don't like the wording of the article. Species do not mutate in response to a situation, they have to already have a mutation and then that trait will survive while the others die. It is all about good genetic diversity.

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

It appears that evolution can take place much faster than the scientists realized before now.

Just the other day I saw a short episode or polar bears swimming from block of ice to block of ice.

Polar bears the scientist said don't like to swim. I wondered if they will evolve and not become extinct as some scientists fear. Same goes for the penguins.

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

I don't like the wording of the article. Species do not mutate in response to a situation, they have to already have a mutation and then that trait will survive while the others die. It is all about good genetic diversity.

Ineresting. So since the bears already know how to swim they will survive right? Perhaps the lighter bears will survive over the heavier ones?

[Undertoad]

That's a bit of confusion from the global warming folks: polar bears do not live on ice, they use the ice as fishing platforms. As the ice melts they do not lose their home, which is on land; they lose their jumping-off places to catch more fish.

Of course species mutate in response to situations... that's the idea.

Ducks from S America end-up on the Falklands and other islands... they change. Happens all the time, duh.

[Happy Monkey]

Well, piercehawkeye45 is correct that individuals don't mutate in response to situations- the gene has no way to know in advance what sort of mistranscribing will be useful. But the selection of beneficial mutations that "mutates" the species in general is in response to situations.

Biologist PZ Meyers has an interesting article on these moths, tying them into the comic book "Y the Last Man".

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

That's a bit of confusion from the global warming folks: polar bears do not live on ice, they use the ice as fishing platforms. As the ice melts they do not lose their home, which is on land; they lose their jumping-off places to catch more fish.

I haven't seen any miscommunication on that front. It's usually pretty clear that the bears are swimming out to sea in hopes of finding a floe to rest on and fish from, and drowning if they can't. They are good swimmers, but they can't swim indefinitely.

There may be selection pressure that causes them to give up and head back to land earlier, but if that means they don't have enough to feed their young, they aren't going to pass that tendency on. Perhaps they'll have to start picking a cub, and only raise one at a time instead of two.

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Well, piercehawkeye45 is correct that individuals don't mutate in response to situations- the gene has no way to know in advance what sort of mistranscribing will be useful. But the selection of beneficial mutations that "mutates" the species in general is in response to situations.

Biologist PZ Meyers has an interesting article on these moths, tying them into the comic book "Y the Last Man".

Individuals?
I thought we were talking about evolution? *pulls out map*

[Happy Monkey]

Individuals mutate, species evolve, which is why I put "mutate" in quotes. For a species to evolve in response to a situation, it has to have individuals with beneficial mutations. The mutations aren't in response to the situation, but the evolution is.

[be-bop]

Bullshit...I thought every thing was created and it's part of God's masterplan that's what they teach nowadays aint it thought they just opened the Creationist Museum your side of the pond which explains it all

http://www.creationmuseum.org/

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Individuals mutate, species evolve, which is why I put "mutate" in quotes. For a species to evolve in response to a situation, it has to have individuals with beneficial mutations. The mutations aren't in response to the situation, but the evolution is.

How do they know what causes the mutations? How do they know they are not in response to some outside threat?

[piercehawkeye45]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Of course species mutate in response to situations... that's the idea.

No, what happens is there is already genetic diversity and natural selection will take its course (assuming we leave out the four other variables for microevolution).

For viruses for example, lets assume that there are four different types of virus A: AA, AB, AC, and AD. Lets say there are 1,000 virus strains and 950 are AA, 20 are AB, 20 are AC, and 10 are AD. When we add an antibody to kill the virus, we find out that the type AB is already immune to the antibody. So after we add the antibody, the number of virus strains go down from 1,000 of 4 different kinds to 20 just AB making it seem like the virus is gone but then the AB virus will grow again and in a week or so we will have 950 AB viruses, 20 AA, 20, AE, and 10 AF. We add the antibody again but since AB is immune to it, 950 virus strains will remain and it will seem that the virus has mutated in response to the antibody when in reality, the conditions changed and the virus strains that were already immune to the antibody were the only ones that survived (microevolution).

Mutations are random, natural section is not.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by piercehawkeye45

No, what happens is there is already genetic diversity and natural selection will take its course (assuming we leave out the four other variables for microevolution).

For viruses for example, lets assume that there are four different types of virus A: AA, AB, AC, and AD. Lets say there are 1,000 virus strains and 950 are AA, 20 are AB, 20 are AC, and 10 are AD. When we add an antibody to kill the virus, we find out that the type AB is already immune to the antibody. So after we add the antibody, the number of virus strains go down from 1,000 of 4 different kinds to 20 just AB making it seem like the virus is gone but then the AB virus will grow again and in a week or so we will have 950 AB viruses, 20 AA, 20, AE, and 10 AF.

Wait a minute, we killed the AA viruses off, where did the 20 AAs come from?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

How do they know what causes the mutations? How do they know they are not in response to some outside threat?

If you find evidence of a creature modifying its DNA in response to a threat, that would be interesting.



I'm not saying it's impossible, but it certainly isn't common...