THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES: AN INTRODUCTION

Change is inevitable. In every aspect of our lives and our world, change continues
to occur whether we like it or not. The non-living world is constantly in a state of
flux, in a small part influenced by the living world, particularly the actions of
humans. Change is also occurring within the living world, with organisms adapting
to changes in their environment over short and long term time scales. The ability to
adapt is essential for survival of individuals, with certain adaptations essential to
avoid the extinction of those species.

HOW DO WE EXPLAIN BIODIVERSITY?

The world has recently celebrated the 200 th birthday of one of the most influential
biologists – some would say the most influential biologist – ever born. Charles
Darwin revolutionised the way people think about how life on Earth came to be. It
was a dramatic story of how a medical school drop-out and future clergyman
transformed our picture of nature and our place in it. Darwin’s work modelled the
classical scientific method. He observed significant numbers of organisms, made
inferences and propose theories that were published for peer review. So considered
were his theories that there was eventual acceptance of a unifying theory of
evolution.

QUESTIONS

1. What do you think a ‘unifying theory’ might mean?

A theory that us all as people can ‘unite’ together to believe in

2. Why do you think Darwin’s theory attracted a lot of criticism?

Due to his controversial proposal which goes against the ideas of creationism.

3. Why might some people not wish to believe in new scientific ideas and theories?

They don’t want to cope with change

HOW DO SPECIES EVOLVE?

Molecular studies have shown that the different domestic dog breeds are all
descended from one or more populations of grey wolf, Canis lupus, and still retain
the ability to interbreed with wolves. There are literally hundreds of different dog
breeds all differing in behaviour, appearance or both. Humans have created a
staggering diversity of dogs by selective breeding in only a few thousand years. It
should be no surprise then that we are surrounded by such diversity of life on this
planet given that the Earth has been around for approximately 4.5 billion years.

QUESTIONS

4. What does ‘selective breeding’ mean?

Choosing two parent organisms and forcing them to breed to produce a wanted offspring

5. How do you think selective breeding happens in nature?

If the only two parents of the same species are isolated from other possible mates.

6. What advantages might selective breeding offer?

To produce an offspring with desired inherited traits

HOW DO WE INTERPRET EVIDENCE?

If life evolved from a common ancestor, then there should be evidence of this in
fossil records and life forms today. Functions critical to survival would be highly
conserved over generations. Imagine the first lung-breathing creature, maybe
something similar to a lungfish. One problem with breathing is the moist linings of
the lungs can tend to stick together, so a special lubricant is required. All mammals,
reptiles, birds and amphibians – all of which have lungs – have a similar problem.
Because the ability to lubricate the lungs is critical to survival, it should be highly
conserved and found in all lung-breathing species on the planet … that is, if they all
came from a common ancestor. And this is exactly what scientists have discovered:
the proteins used by all land vertebrates to lubricate their lungs are exactly the
same. Evidence of evolution is everywhere we look, from the functionless legs of
snakes and the hair of whales to evidence in our DNA, in the common structures
and behaviours of creatures around us and in the fossil record.

QUESTIONS

7. What other structures or functions are critical to life and hence may be conserved
across different species?

Organs such as the heart or lungs, bloodstream etc.

8. Why do you think that functions that are critical to life should be conserved
across generations?

To ensure that life will continue forever on and not face the risk of extinction, if critical
functions were removed then we would not have the capability of living.

9. Apart from evolution, what other ideas have been put forward to explain the great
diversity of life on this planet?

Creation
 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES: AN INTRODUCTION

BREEDING A BETTER LUPIN

Lupins are plants used as animal feed on farms. Wild lupin plants originated in the
Mediterranean region and were exported around the world. There were some
problems with the original plants, so selective breeding was used.

The original wild lupin seeds had a rather bitter taste, so animals generally only ate
the leaves. The seed pods also shattered and scattered their seeds, so farmers
found it difficult to harvest the seeds for planting at a later time. John Gladstone is a
plant breeder from Western Australia. He thought he might be able to change lupins
to make them into a better animal stock feed. He particularly wanted to produce
seeds that animal stock would eat, and that would be easier to harvest. Gladstone
began his research by searching through fields of lupins, looking for mutants that
didn’t have shattering pods. He eventually found two plants in which the seed pods
had only partially shattered.

Studies of these two plants showed that pod shattering was controlled by two
independently inherited recessive genes. These genes affected the seed pods in
different ways to stop them shattering. John cross-bred these two plants and
managed to produce a plant with completely non-shattering pods.

However, these lupins still had bitter seeds, which animals did not eat. So he
crossed the bitter-seeded, non-shattering plants with lupins that had sweeter
tasting seeds, but shattering pods. As shown in the table, some of the offspring
were plants that had non-shattering and sweet seeds.
 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES: AN INTRODUCTION

John then crossed these plants with lupins that had white flowers. He wanted to be
able to easily spot the sweet-scented non-shattering plants if they became mixed up
with the others. He finally succeeded in producing lupins that had non-shattering
pods, sweet seeds and white flowers. This resulted in stock feed that was worth
many millions of dollars to farmers around Australia.

In terms of evolution, the story of lupins is important because it shows that the
characteristics of a species can be changed by selecting which individuals breed.
Selecting the phenotype (appearance) of the individuals means selecting their
genotype (genetic make-up). In this way, the genetic make-up of a species can be
altered by selection.
 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES: AN INTRODUCTION

QUESTIONS

10. There were two problems with early wild lupin types that made them difficult for
farmers to use as feed for animals. Identify the two problems.

They were bitter and the seed pods shattered

11. Explain why John Gladstone’s first step in his research was to look through
fields of lupins.

To look for lupins with mutations that gave it a trait to only partially shatter its pod for
breeding

12. Explain what was shown by the studies of the two mutant lupins discovered by
John Gladstone.

The two mutant lupins with partially shattered pods had an inherited recessive trait for it

13. Describe what John Gladstone did with the two mutant plants. Explain why he
did this.

He selectively bred the two mutant plants in order to produce a new plant with non-
shattering pods

14. Describe the problem with the new cross-bred lupin with non-shattering pods.

They were still bitter and animals did not like to eat bitter produce

15. Explain John Gladstones’s procedure to improve the non-shattering, bitter-

He cross-bred it with lupins that had shattering pods but sweet seeds in order to produce
lupins with non-shattering pods but sweet seeds

16. Does this story about selective breeding support the idea of evolutionary
change in a species? Explain.

Yes, being able to selectively breed organisms in order to achieve an offspring with
desired traits is how organism from evolution come about. The environment determines
 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES: AN INTRODUCTION

what trait is the best to survive and as a result those traits will come about in most of the
population

17. In which of the following activities are humans least likely to influence the
evolution of other organisms? Justify your answer.

(1) Spraying gardens with pesticides.

(2) Breeding frost-resistant oranges.

(3) Recycling wastes from cities.

(4) Using antibiotics in the control of bacteria.

Recycling wastes from cities through a process of elimination. Spraying gardens with
pesticides will eliminate those who aren’t immune to the chemicals but those who will, will
be able to survive and reproduce more organisms that are immune to the pesticide.
Breeding frost-resistant oranges will produce more oranges with that trait and using
antibiotics to control bacteria will rid the bacteria that aren’t immune, but for the bacteria
that are will survive and be able to reproduce more bacteria that are immune to antibiotics