Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Adaptation is related to biological fitness, which governs the rate of evolution as measured by changes in allele frequencies. Often, two or more species co-adapt and co-evolve as they develop adaptations that interlock with those of the other species, such as with flowering plants and pollinating insects.
An adaptive system is a set of interacting or interdependent entities, real or abstract, forming an integrated whole that together are able to respond to environmental changes or changes in the interacting parts, in a way analogous to either continuous physiological homeostasis or evolutionary adaptation in biology.
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. [1] [2] It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. [3]
Convergent evolution is the process in which related or distantly related organisms evolve similar characteristics independently. This type of evolution creates analogous structures which have a similar function, structure, or form between the two species. For example, sharks and dolphins look alike but they are not related.
Evolvability is defined as the capacity of a system for adaptive evolution.Evolvability is the ability of a population of organisms to not merely generate genetic diversity, but to generate adaptive genetic diversity, and thereby evolve through natural selection.
However, Voight et al. (2006) found evidence of more adaptive evolution in Africans, than in Non-Africans (East Asian and European populations examined), and Boyko et al. (2008) found no significant difference in the amount of adaptive evolution occurring between different human populations.
Ecological genetics tie into evolutionary ecology through the study of how traits evolve in natural populations. [8] Ecologists are concerned with how the environment and timeframe leads to genes becoming dominant. Organisms must continually adapt in order to survive in natural habitats. Genes define which organisms survive and which will die out.
Subsequently, Thomas Turner coined the term Evolve and Resequence (E&R) [10] and several studies used E&R approach with mixed success. [ 27 ] [ 28 ] One of the more interesting experimental evolution studies was conducted by Gabriel Haddad's group at UC San Diego, where Haddad and colleagues evolved flies to adapt to low oxygen environments ...