1. What were Charles Darwin’s contributions to science?

2. What did Hudson and Lyell conclude about Earth’s history?

3. How did Lamarck propose that species evolve?
4. What was Malthus’s view of population growth?
5. How is inherited variation used in artificial selection?
6. Under which conditions does natural selection occur?
7. What does Darwin’s mechanism for evolution suggest about living
and extinct species?
8. How does the geographic distribution of species today relate to
their evolutionary history?
9. How do fossils help to document the descent of modern species
from ancient ancestors?
10. What do homologous structures and similarities in embryonic
development suggest about the process of evolutionary change?
11. How can molecular biology be used to trace the process of
evolution?
In the mid 1800s, Charles Darwin, developed
the theory of evolution, which revolutionized
the field of biology

Evolution is the process of successive changes of

characteristics of populations of species over long periods of
time

The theory of evolution explains how species change and

adapt over time
• Strongly supported by scientific evidence
• Provides a scientific explanation for the similarities and
differences observed among species
• Highlights the interconnectedness of all living organisms
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was born in England and grew up
at a time when the scientific view of the natural world was
shifting dramatically.
• In 1831, Darwin embarked on a five-year voyage aboard the
HMS Beagle to map the coastline of South America
• He served as a naturalist on the ship, collecting specimens
of plants and animals
As he traveled, Darwin noticed three distinctive patterns of
biological diversity:
• Species vary globally: different,
yet ecologically similar, animal
species inhabited separated, but
ecologically similar, habitats
around the world
• Species vary locally: different,
yet related, animal species often
occupied different habitats within
an area
• Species vary over time: fossils of
extinct species were similar to
living species
The Galapagos Islands provided a natural laboratory that allowed
Darwin to witness firsthand the diversity of life and the ways in
which species were adapted to their environments.
• Finches on various islands had different beak shapes and
sizes, which were adapted to the specific food available on
each island
• The variation in beaks among finches suggests that a common
ancestral finch likely arrived on the islands, and over time,
different species evolved with specialized beak shapes and
sizes suited to different types of food sources available on
each island
There are currently at least 13 different species of finches on the
Galapagos Islands, each filling a different niche on different
islands
• All finches evolved from one ancestral species, which
colonized the islands a few million years ago
• The process where a species rapidly evolves to exploit various
aspects of their environment is called adaptive radiation.
Darwin’s theory of evolution challenged the belief that all species
were created in their current form
• Darwin proposed that species change over time through a
process called natural selection
• Individuals within a population possess variations, and those
with traits that are advantageous for their environment have a
better chance of surviving and reproducing
• Over generations, advantageous traits become more common
in a population, leading to the evolution of new species
Around the early 1800s, Geologists James Hutton and Charles
Lyell formed important hypotheses about the age of the Earth
• Most people at that time believed the Earth was only a few
thousand years old
• Hutton and Lyell concluded that the Earth is extremely old, and
that the processes that changed the Earth in the past are the
same processes that operate in the present
James Hutton is often referred to as the “father of modern
geology”. His work in the late 18th century titled “Theory of the
Earth”, proposed the following:
• Uniformitarianism: the same natural processes observed today
have been occurring throughout Earth’s history
• Deep Time: the concept of deep time argues that Earth’s
history spans much longer than previously thought
• Rock Cycle: Hutton’s work laid the foundation for
understanding the processes involved in the rock cycle
Building on Hutton’s ideas, Lyell further developed the principles
of uniformitarianism in his influential work “Principles of Geology”
in the early 19th century
• Principles of Uniformitarianism: Lyell argued that geological
processes observed today can explain Earth’s past
• Gradualism: Lyell emphasized the importance of gradual and
incremental changes over long periods of time in shaping
Earth’s surface.
• This concept opposed the
prevailing idea of catastrophism,
which suggested that major
geological features were the
result of sudden short-term
events
In 1809, the year Darwin was born, French naturalist
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck proposed two (incorrect)
hypotheses about how life evolved:

• Use and Disuse: Lamarck argued that body parts or organs

would develop or degenerate based on their use or disuse
• Example: If a giraffe did not stretch its neck to reach high
branches, its neck would shorten

• Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics: individuals could

acquire new traits during their lifetime in response to the
environment
• Acquired traits would be inherited by offspring
• Example: if a giraffe stretched its neck to reach high
branches during its lifetime, it would develop into a longer
neck that would be inherited by its offspring
 In 1798, English economist Thomas Malthus noted
that humans were being born faster than people
were dying, causing overcrowding
• Malthus argued that if the human population grew unchecked,
there would not be enough living space and food for everyone
• Darwin realized that Malthus’s reasonings applied to more
organisms than just humans
• He noted that all offspring from
many organisms do not survive
to maturity and if they did, they
would overrun the world
• This made Darwin question why
certain individuals survive long
enough to reproduce
Darwin studied changes produced by plant and animal breeders
• Darwin concluded that some variations can be passed on from
parents to offspring and used to improve crops and livestock
• He called this process artificial selection
• In artificial selection, humans select organisms with the
variations that they find useful and breed these organisms
to produce offspring with these desired variations
Examples of Artificial Selection:
• Agricultural crops
• Livestock breeding
• Domestic dog breeding
• Ornamental plants
In 1859, Charles Darwin published his first complete work on
evolution titled On the Origin of Species
• In his work, he presented his theory of evolution by natural
selection, which fundamentally changed the way scientists and
the public thought about the origin and diversity of life on Earth
• It was initially met with skepticism and resistance because its
ideas challenged the prevailing belief that all species were
created in their current form
• Over time, the scientific
community largely embraced
the theory of evolution, while
societal acceptance varied
and evolved
An adaptation is any heritable characteristic that increases an
organism’s ability to survive and reproduce
• Adaptations can involve body structures or behaviors
A scarlet king snake exhibits
mimicry, an adaptation where
an organism mimics a more
dangerous organism. The
king snake is harmless, and
the coral snake is highly
venomous.

Can you spot the flying

gecko? Camouflage is an
example of an adaption that
allows an organism to blend
into its environment and
avoid predation.
According to Darwin, different adaptations affect an individual’s
fitness
• Fitness describes how well an organism can survive and
reproduce in its environment
• Individuals that are well adapted to their environment can
survive and reproduce and have high fitness
• Individuals that are not well suited to their environment
either die without reproducing or leave few offspring have
low fitness
The difference in rates of
survival and reproduction is
called survival of the fittest
• In evolutionary terms,
survival means reproducing
and passing adaptations on
to the next generation
Darwin proposed that species change over time through the
mechanism called natural selection
• Natural selection is the process by which organisms with
variations best suited to their local environment survive and
leave more offspring
• Individuals within a population that possess variations that are
advantageous for their environment have a better chance of
surviving and reproducing
• Over generations, advantageous traits become more common
in a population, leading to the evolution of new species
Natural selection occurs in any situation where:
• More organisms are born than can survive (struggle for
existence)
• There is heritable variations and adaptations
• There is variable fitness among individuals
Mice
reproduce,
Some mice are passing on
eaten by birds traits to the
next generation

A population of mice moved Tan mice or more visible to Because brown mice had a
into an area with darker predators and are eaten at a higher chance of leaving
rock. Due to heritable higher frequency, therefore offspring than tan mice, the
genetic variations, some they have a lower fitness than next generation contains a
mice are tan, and some are brown mice. Surviving mice higher frequency of brown
brown. reach reproductive age and mice than the previous
leave offspring. generation.
According to the principle of common descent, all species (living
and extinct), are descended from ancient common ancestors

This page (above) from Darwin’s

notebooks shows the first
evolutionary tree ever drawn.
The scientific theory of evolution is supported by a
remarkable amount of scientific evidence:
• Biogeography
• The age of the Earth and fossils
• Comparative anatomy and embryology
• Genetics and molecular biology
Biogeography is the study of where organisms live now and
where they and their ancestors have lived in the past
• The biogeography of the Galapagos species suggested
that the populations on the various islands have evolved
from mainland species
• Overtime, natural
selection on the islands
produced variations
among populations that
resulted in different, but
closely related species
• Example: various
species of finches
living in the Galapagos
Radioactive dating indicates that the Earth is about 4.5 billion
years old – plenty of time for evolution by natural selection to
occur
• Many recently discovered
fossils form series that trace the
evolution of modern species
from extinct ancestors
• Since Darwin,
paleontologists have
discovered hundreds of
transitional fossils that
document intermediate
stages in the evolution of
groups of modern species
Homologous structures are structures that are shared by related
species and have been inherited from a common ancestor
• These structures have similar anatomy and dissimilar
functions
• Homologous structures help determine how recently species
shared a common ancestor
• The forelimbs of the organisms below are all homologous
structures
Analogous structures are body parts that share common
functions, but do not contain common structures
• They are not derived from a common ancestor
• Example: the wings of a bee and the wings of a
bird both help the organisms fly, however, they are
very anatomically different
Vestigial structures are inherited from ancestors but have lost
all or most of their original functions
• This is due to the different selection pressures acting on
the descendent
• Some snakes have vestigial legs, a clue that snakes
descended from lizards
• Wisdom teeth in humans are
vestigial. Our ancestors
needed them for chewing
coarse and tough foods.
Similar patterns of embryological development provide
further evidence that organisms have descended from a
common ancestor
• Early developmental stages of vertebrates look very
similar
• The same groups of embryonic cells develop in the same
order and in similar patterns to produce many
homologous tissues and organs
Like structural homologies, similarities between biological
molecules provides evidence of common descent
All living things share:
• The same genetic material (DNA)
• Nearly identical genetic codes
• The same basic process of gene expression

Genetic mutations produce the

heritable variations on which
natural selection operates
Genetic mutations are the driving force of evolution
because they are the raw material of genetic variation
• A mutation is a change in the genetic information
contained within DNA
• Environmental changes and natural selection
impact of mutations, contributing to the process of
evolution
• Mutations can be helpful, harmful, or have no
effect on an organism
Natural selection occurs when:
1. A random mutation arises in the DNA of an
individual organism
2. The mutation is passed on when the organism
reproduces
3. If the mutation is advantageous, this new trait
helps the next generation survive to
reproductive age and reproduce
4. Over time, the mutation becomes a common
trait in the population of species
Describe the process of
natural selection.
 What is the difference
between artificial selection
and natural selection?
 What is survival of the
fittest and what makes an
organism fit?
 Describe the difference
between homologous
structures and analogous
structures.
Describe how molecular
biology supports the
theory of evolution.