We tend to see history and evolution springing from separate roots, one grounded in the human world and the other in the natural world. Human beings have, however, become probably the most powerful ...species shaping evolution today, and human-caused evolution in other species has probably been the most important force shaping human history. This book introduces readers to evolutionary history, a new field that unites history and biology to create a fuller understanding of the past than either can produce on its own. Evolutionary history can stimulate surprising new hypotheses for any field of history and evolutionary biology. How many art historians would have guessed that sculpture encouraged the evolution of tuskless elephants? How many biologists would have predicted that human poverty would accelerate animal evolution? How many military historians would have suspected that plant evolution would convert a counter-insurgency strategy into a rebel subsidy? With examples from around the globe, this book will help readers see the broadest patterns of history and the details of their own life in a new light.
In this book Ron Amundson examines two hundred years of scientific views on the evolution-development relationship from the perspective of evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo). This ...perspective challenges several popular views about the history of evolutionary thought by claiming that many earlier authors had made history come out right for the Evolutionary Synthesis. The book starts with a revised history of nineteenth-century evolutionary thought. It then investigates how development became irrelevant with the Evolutionary Synthesis. It concludes with an examination of the contrasts that persist between mainstream evolutionary theory and evo-devo. This book will appeal to students and professionals in the philosophy and history of science, and biology.
Evolution of a multifunctional trait Friedman, Nicholas R.; Miller, Eliot T.; Ball, Jason R. ...
Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences,
12/2019, Letnik:
286, Številka:
1917
Journal Article
Recenzirano
While morphological traits are often associated with multiple functions, it remains unclear how evolution balances the selective effects of different functions. Birds’ beaks function not only in ...foraging but also in thermoregulating and singing, among other behaviours. Studies of beak evolution abound, however, most focus on a single function. Hence,we quantified relative contributions of different functions over an evolutionary timescale. We measured beak shape using geometric morphometrics and compared this trait with foraging behaviour, climatic variables and song characteristics in a phylogenetic comparative study of an Australasian radiation of songbirds (Meliphagidae). We found that both climate and foraging behaviour were significantly correlated with the beak shape and size. However, foraging ecology had a greater effect on shape, and climate had a nearly equal effect on size. We also found that evolutionary changes in beak morphology had significant consequences for vocal performance: species with elongate-shaped beaks sang at higher frequencies, while species with large beaks sang at a slower pace. The evolution of the avian beak exemplifies how morphological traits can be an evolutionary compromise among functions, and suggests that specialization along any functional axismay increase ecological divergence or reproductive isolation along others.
Incorporating extinct taxa in phylogenetic comparative methods is rapidly becoming invaluable in studies of character evolution. An increasing number of studies have evaluated the effects of extinct ...taxa, and different numbers of extinct taxa, on model selection and parameter estimation. Body mass is a well-studied phenotype, but individual mass estimates may vary dramatically depending on the particular measurement used. Here, we perform an analysis of body mass evolution in a large clade of principally arboreal birds, incorporating 76 extinct species. We evaluate how different methods for estimating body mass of extinct taxa, and different phylogenetic hypotheses, affect our understanding of the rate and pattern of body mass evolution. Our results show that model selection can vary dramatically depending on the phenotypic and phylogenetic hypothesis used in the reconstruction. Even small changes in phenotype estimates can lead to different model selection and, as a result, affect the inferred evolutionary history. The best-fit models support an increase in the rate of evolution following the K–Pg boundary, with variation accumulating linearly through the Cenozoic. These results provide additional insight into the application of comparative models of evolution, as well as the evolutionary history of one of the most spectacular vertebrate radiations.
New Zealand is an island continent that completed its split from the Gondwanan continent at 52 Ma, harbouring an iconic biota of tuatara, kiwi and weta. The sooty mould community is a distinctive ...trophic element of New Zealand forest ecosystems that is driven by plant-feeding sternorrhynchan Hemiptera. These produce honeydew, which supports fungal growth, which in turn supports numerous endemic invertebrates, including endemic New Zealand beetle families. Ancient New Zealand insect fossils are rare but a single fossil of a sooty mould cyclaxyridwas recently described from Cretaceous Burmese amber, a family that was previously known from two extant New Zealand species. Well-preserved fossils like this one are recasting Earth history, and, based on a wealth of additional specimens, we re-evaluate the taxonomy of Cretaceous cyclaxyrids and one Eocene species here transferred to Cyclaxyridae. Cyclaxyridae are highly tied to the sooty mould community and have now been discovered to occur in disparate biogeographic realms in deep time. Our discovery indicates that the family, and perhaps the sooty mould community in general, was widespread in Pangaea from at least the Cretaceous and survived as a relict in New Zealand. Persistence of a sooty mould ecosystem in New Zealand and fungal specialization may not necessarily be an evolutionary ‘dead-end’ for cyclaxyrids and other insects.
The miniaturized arachnid order Palpigradi has ambiguous phylogenetic affinities owing to its odd combination of plesiomorphic and derived morphological traits. This lineage has never been sampled in ...phylogenomic datasets because of the small body size and fragility of most species, a sampling gap of immediate concern to recent disputes over arachnid monophyly. To redress this gap, we sampled a population of the cave-inhabiting species Eukoenenia spelaea from Slovakia and inferred its placement in the phylogeny of Chelicerata using dense phylogenomic matrices of up to 1450 loci, drawn fromhigh-quality transcriptomic libraries and complete genomes. The complete matrix included exemplars of all extant orders of Chelicerata. Analyses of the complete matrix recovered palpigrades as the sister group of the long-branch order Parasitiformes (ticks) with high support. However, sequential deletion of long-branch taxa revealed that the position of palpigrades is prone to topological instability. Phylogenomic subsampling approaches that maximized taxon or dataset completeness recovered palpigrades as the sister group of camel spiders (Solifugae), with modest support. While this relationship is congruent with the location and architecture of the coxal glands, a long-forgotten character system that opens in the pedipalpal segments only in palpigrades and solifuges, we show that nodal support values in concatenated supermatrices can mask high levels of underlying topological conflict in the placement of the enigmatic Palpigradi.
Sex chromosomes have evolved from the same autosomes multiple times across vertebrates, suggesting that selection for recombination suppression has acted repeatedly and independently on certain ...genetic backgrounds. Here, we perform comparative genomics of a bird clade (larks and their sister lineage; Alaudidae and Panuridae) where multiple autosome–sex chromosome fusions appear to have formed expanded sex chromosomes. We detected the largest known avian sex chromosome (195.3 Mbp) and show that it originates from fusions between parts of four avian chromosomes: Z, 3, 4A and 5. Within these four chromosomes, we found evidence of five evolutionary strata where recombination had been suppressed at different time points, and show that stratum age explained the divergence rate of Z–Wgametologs. Next, we analysed chromosome content and found that chromosome 3 was significantly enriched for genes with predicted sex-related functions. Finally, we demonstrate extensive homology to sex chromosomes in other vertebrate lineages: chromosomes Z, 3, 4A and 5 have independently evolved into sex chromosomes in fish (Z), turtles (Z, 5), lizards (Z, 4A), mammals (Z, 4A) and frogs (Z, 3, 4A, 5). Our results provide insights into and support for repeated evolution of sex chromosomes in vertebrates.
Disruptive natural selection within populations exploiting different resources is considered to be a major driver of adaptive radiation and the production of biodiversity. Fitness functions, which ...describe the relationships between trait variation and fitness, can help to illuminate how this disruptive selection leads to population differentiation. However, a single fitness function represents only a particular selection regime over a single specified time period (often a single season or a year), and therefore might not capture longer-term dynamics. Here, we build a series of annual fitness functions that quantify the relationships between phenotype and apparent survival. These functions are based on a 9-year mark–recapture dataset of over 600 medium ground finches (Geospiza fortis) within a population bimodal for beak size.We then relate changes in the shape of these functions to climate variables. We find that disruptive selection between small and large beak morphotypes, as reported previously for 2 years, is present throughout the study period, but that the intensity of this selection varies in association with the harshness of environment. In particular, we find that disruptive selection was strongest when precipitation was high during the dry season of the previous year. Our results shed light on climatic factors associatedwith disruptive selection in Darwin’s finches, and highlight the role of temporally varying fitness functions in modulating the extent of population differentiation.
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