Portal:Evolutionary biology

The Evolutionary Biology Portal

Introduction

Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biology emerged through what Julian Huxley called the modern synthesis of understanding, from previously unrelated fields of biological research, such as genetics and ecology, systematics, and paleontology.

The investigational range of current research has widened to encompass the genetic architecture of adaptation, molecular evolution, and the different forces that contribute to evolution, such as sexual selection, genetic drift, and biogeography. The newer field of evolutionary developmental biology ("evo-devo") investigates how embryogenesis is controlled, thus yielding a wider synthesis that integrates developmental biology with the fields of study covered by the earlier evolutionary synthesis. (Full article...)

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The sloshing bucket model of evolution is a theory in evolutionary biology that describes how environmental disturbances varying in magnitude will affect the species present. The theory emphasizes the causal relationship between environmental factors that impinge and affect genealogical systems, providing an overarching view that determines the relationship between the variety of biological systems.

This theory was developed by Niles Eldredge, a U.S. biologist and paleontologist, and published in the journal 'Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Interplay of Selection, Accident, Neutrality and Function ' where Eldredge introduces his sloshing bucket model in the article titled: 'The Sloshing Bucket: How the Physical Realm Controls Evolution'. (Full article...)

List of selected articles

General images -

The following are images from various evolutionary biology-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Rhagoletis pomonella, the hawthorn fly, appears to be in the process of sympatric speciation. (from Speciation)
Image 2A covalent adduct between the metabolite of benzo[a]pyrene, the major mutagen in tobacco smoke, and DNA (from Mutation)
Image 3Five types of chromosomal mutations (from Mutation)
Image 4Among the centipedes, all members of the Geophilomorpha are constrained by a developmental bias to have an odd number of segments, whether as few as 27 or as many as 191. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 5African pygmy kingfisher, showing coloration shared by all adults of that species to a high degree of fidelity. (from Speciation)
Image 6Three major single-chromosome mutations: deletion (1), duplication (2) and inversion (3). (from Mutation)
Image 7Expression of homeobox (Hox) genes in the fruit fly (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 8Turing's 1952 paper explained mathematically how patterns such as stripes and spots, as in the giant pufferfish, may arise, without molecular evidence. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 9Phyletic gradualism, above, consists of relatively slow change over geological time. Punctuated equilibrium, bottom, consists of morphological stability and rare, relatively rapid bursts of evolutionary change. (from Speciation)
Image 10Comparison of allopatric, peripatric, parapatric and sympatric speciation (from Speciation)
Image 11A gene regulatory network (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 12Gap genes in the fruit fly are switched on by genes such as bicoid, setting up stripes across the embryo which start to pattern the body's segments. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 13The lac operon. Top: repressed. Bottom: active. (1) RNA Polymerase, (2) Repressor, (3) Promoter, (4) Operator, (5) Lactose, (6–8) protein-encoding genes, controlled by the switch, that cause lactose to be digested. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 14This figure shows a simplified version of loss-of-function, switch-of-function, gain-of-function, and conservation-of-function mutations. (from Mutation)
Image 15Gene product distributions along the long axis of the early embryo of a fruit fly (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 16The pax-6 gene controls development of eyes of different types across the animal kingdom. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 17The distribution of fitness effects (DFE) of mutations in vesicular stomatitis virus. In this experiment, random mutations were introduced into the virus by site-directed mutagenesis, and the fitness of each mutant was compared with the ancestral type. A fitness of zero, less than one, one, more than one, respectively, indicates that mutations are lethal, deleterious, neutral, and advantageous. (from Mutation)
Image 18A. Lancelet (a chordate), B. Larval tunicate, C. Adult tunicate. Kowalevsky saw that the notochord (1) and gill slits (5) are shared by tunicates and vertebrates. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 19Reinforcement assists speciation by selecting against hybrids. (from Speciation)
Image 20Embryology theories of Ernst Haeckel, who argued for recapitulation of evolutionary development in the embryo, and Karl Ernst von Baer's epigenesis (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 21Prodryas persephone, a Late Eocene butterfly (from Mutation)
Image 22The structure of a eukaryotic protein-coding gene. A mutation in the protein coding region (red) can result in a change in the amino acid sequence. Mutations in other areas of the gene can have diverse effects. Changes within regulatory sequences (yellow and blue) can effect transcriptional and translational regulation of gene expression. (from Mutation)
Image 23Male Drosophila pseudoobscura (from Speciation)
Image 24Cichlids such as Haplochromis nyererei diversified by sympatric speciation in the Rift Valley lakes. (from Speciation)
Image 25Homologous Hox genes in such different animals as insects and vertebrates control embryonic development and hence the form of adult bodies. These genes have been highly conserved through hundreds of millions of years of evolution. (from Evolutionary developmental biology)
Image 26Speciation via polyploidy: A diploid cell undergoes failed meiosis, producing diploid gametes, which self-fertilize to produce a tetraploid zygote. In plants, this can effectively be a new species, reproductively isolated from its parents, and able to reproduce. (from Speciation)
Image 27Point mutations classified by impact on protein (from Mutation)
Image 28A mutation has caused this moss rose plant to produce flowers of different colours. This is a somatic mutation that may also be passed on in the germline. (from Mutation)
Image 29Gaur (Indian bison) can interbreed with domestic cattle. (from Speciation)
Image 30Types of small-scale mutations (from Mutation)
Image 31Selection of disease-causing mutations, in a standard table of the genetic code of amino acids (from Mutation)
Image 32A red tulip exhibiting a partially yellow petal due to a somatic mutation in a cell that formed that petal (from Mutation)

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Orange Band, the last Dusky Seaside Sparrow died in 1987 in a captive facility in the Walt Disney World Resort

Did you know... -

... that the idea that molecular evolution is dominated by genetic drift originally took its name from the 1969 paper "Non-Darwinian Evolution"?
... that American evolutionary biologist Jack Lester King co-authored a provocative 1969 paper, "Non-Darwinian Evolution", on the neutral theory of molecular evolution?
... that William King Gregory, a leading authority on vertebrate evolution and the preeminent expert on human dentition, was initially taken in by the Piltdown Man, a hoax which was purported to be an early human?

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