Chapter 2
Adaptation and Evolution

Required Reading

Additional Reading (2-3 Quiz questions from these sources)

Click here for the Myths of Evolution page Chapter 2 - Elements of Ecology Sections of Chapter 2 that we are not covering: 2.6 - The Concept of Species is Based... 2.7 - The Process of Speciation Involves... 2.8 - Geographic Variation Within Species... Quantifying Ecology 2.1 - Descriptive Statistics Quantifying Ecology 2.2 - Confidence Intervals Researcher Profile: Beren W. Robinson Text, images and captions on this page

MASTER PLANNED: Why intelligent design isn’t (The New Yorker) Evolution and the avian flu U.S. Lags World in Grasp of Genetics and Acceptance of Evolution

Links for Enrichment and Further Learning

Student Learning Outcomes. Lessons in this chapter are intended to help students to:

Study Questions / Quiz Prep. (Consult Required Reading and lecture notes for answers.)

1. What are the three properties of the “Living State"? (lecture)
2. In order for the “Living State” to persist on a world, individuals must be able to reproduce. Why? (lecture)
   
3. Your car is operationally complex and exhibits very complicated behavior. Why is your car not “alive”?
4. Evolution science is a synthesis of which two sciences? (myths of evolution)
5. Which picture best represents the style of information storage in DNA?

6. List the myths of evolution? (from lecture and (myths of evolution presentation)
7. Using modern evolution theory, which picture most reasonably predicts what humans will look like 10,000 years from now? Briefly explain.

8. Imagine a scenario in which continuous generations of chimpanzees are placed in front of typewriters for their entire lives. Using the modern theory of evolution, and given all the remaining time until the end of the Universe, what are the chances that the chimpanzees would produce a single meaningful sentence? Briefly explain.

9. Define Adaptation.
10. Define Fitness.
11. Define Natural selection.
12. Define Directional selection.
13. Define Stabilizing selection.
14. Define Disruptive selection.
15. Define DNA.
16. Define Chromosome.
17. Define Gene.
18. Define Allele.
19. Define Mutation.
20. Define Evolution.
21. Define Gene Frequency.
22. Define Niche.
23. Gregor Mendel was an Austrian monk who, in the late 1800s, liked to cross breed different kinds of pea plants. He made a discovery that became very useful in the science of genetics. What was Mendel’s useful discovery?

24. According to Gregor Mendel, for each inherited characteristic, an organism has units of inheritance.
25. Gregor Mendel experimented with flowers in his garden. He discovered interesting results in the mix of colors of the second generation following cross-breeding of true-breeding purple and white flowers. Which picture below best illustrates his experiment?

26. Consider the picture of a chromosome below. Sections of the chromosome are labeled. Specifically, what do these sections represent?

27. What is the primary original source of genetic variation in a population?
28. Looking at the population of the rabbits at right, what is the minimum number of “Pattern of fur coloration” alleles in the population?

29. For more than 20 years, Peter and Rosemary Grant studied finches on Daphne Major, one of the Galapagos Islands. The picture below is a summary of their findings. Interpret it?

30. Based on the results of the Grant team’s investigations of Galapagos finches, did individual finches adapt to their environment?
31. Based on the results of the Grant team’s investigations of Galapagos finches, did a new species of finch arise that was more tolerant to their environment?
32. Based on the results of the Grant team’s investigations of Galapagos finches, did the finches develop new, special adaptations that enabled them to better cope with drought?
33. Based on the results of the Grant team’s investigations of Galapagos finches, did genes that influenced beak size change from generation-to-generation, depending on environmental conditions?
34. Below are pictures that represent a single species of beetle. The pictures represent genetic snapshots of the beetle population at different critical times. Using modern evolution theory, interpret these pictures and the action?

Synthesis

None yet...

Living State

I propose that the Living State is expressed by physical objects that have the following characteristics:

1. Complex operational systems -- systems whose operations produce some recognizable, rewarding outcome.
2. Self-maintaining -- resulting in some rewarding operational level. There are automatic controls in place that monitor, adjust and repair systems in rewarding ways.
3. Exploitive -- of available environments. Providing rewarding support of the self-maintenance component. Exploiting resources and opportunities.

The image above is a game-style Heads Up Display (HUD) for a little salamander (represented as the little yellow creature at bottom center). This image illustrates the high level of connectedness that a living individual has with its surrounding environment. In the process of trying to maintain the living state, this salamander receives many rewarding services from a variety of internal systems. Note that this is just a snapshot of the instantaneous situation. In another millisecond, the situation could change in important ways. At this time, the salamander is consuming services for remote environmental characterization. For example, eyes sample and focus light reflected from surrounding objects (photoreception). The nose samples chemicals in the air and the tongue samples chemicals in the water (chemoreception). Ears report patterns of vibrations in the air made by surrounding objects in the environment (mechanoreception). And heat sensors in the skin report the thermal environment in the water and out (thermoreception). The salamander's brain (small you may think) integrates sensory services and passes results to a decision structure with command authority. It tracks opportunities (the ladybug) and threats (the flying gull and the standing great blue heron). The decision to exploit or retreat is a significant one -- it could produce rewards or failures. Added to the mix is a consideration of the salamander's internal state. Certain internal reserves are approaching critically low levels, and any increased activity to replenish them speeds their depletion further. Besides, this little salamander isn't operating at one-hundred percent. He has sustained injuries to his right ear and tail. He's got parasites and a kidney infection. Despite that this little salamander has been successful so far in his/her life, it's still not sexually mature. Right now, its primary mission is to maintain the living state. If it reaches a state of sexual maturity intact, it may or may not contribute genetic information into the next generation of salamanders in this area. This scenario attempts to illustrate the dynamical and extremely complex nature of the living experience. If you set two slightly different salamanders side-by-side in this scenario, it would be impossible for anyone to argue which of the two has the most promising mix of features. Because of this naturally dynamical system, the ability to predict outcomes is very limited -- like trying to predict the weather a week from today. As a result, evolution is a "phenomenal" system, not a logical system. The system of genetics and life is not constrained by human logic, but instead it is constrained only by the physical limits of the systems in play.