Questions tagged [evolution]
Changes in the heritable attributes of populations of organisms over time. The mechanisms of evolution are mutation, migration, drift, and selection.
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What type of statistical analysis should I use for non-discrete scores?
I am a 12th grader in an IB Biology course. For my IA (internal assessment, a paper where we conduct an investigation and write a paper on the process and results), I created a simulation of the ...
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How does genetic recombination affect the Hardy-Weinberg principle?
My textbook states that genetic recombination affects the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. But genetic recombination means rearrangement of the existing alleles. Genetic recombination doesn’t create or ...
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Where does Tiktaalik fit on the tree of life? [closed]
Tiktaalik has a combination of fish like features (scales, gills and fin rays) and tetrapod features (flattened head, neck, robust ribs, and limb bones). I know it is a transitional species. AI isn't ...
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asymmetric cell division and plant phyllotaxis
Is there some agreed upon relationship or some consensus about relationship between some asymmetric cell division and some plant phyllotaxis (and fibonacci or other series)?
Or are asymmetric cell ...
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Are birds prevented from having flexible femurs?
The femurs in birds seem to be very limited in movement, something that I always understood as a necessary sacrifice to minimize weight for flight. However, flightless birds such as ostriches also ...
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Can the human body (specifically features like the brain and ability to make tools) be thought of as an equilibrium point of evolution?
One usually thinks of evolution as an aimless random walk, which is simultaneously also guided by environmental changes, resulting in the time evolution of genetic material and the variety of species ...
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Understanding timeline of chemical evolution and early life
We have no idea about how the first self replicating metabolic capsule
of life arose. The first non-cellular forms of life could have
originated 3 billion years back. They would have been giant ...
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How is evolutionary fitness usually defined in models?
Consider a (biological) species in which the concept of an individual is well-defined, and where the number of offspring is also well-defined. In the models I have encountered, evolutionary fitness of ...
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What is the minimum computational complexity for evolution to occur in ANY system of replicators? You may assume replicators are given if you want
I am a PhD student in mathematics. This is a computer science question about evolution, and I am a novice in both computer science and biology.
What is the minimum computational complexity for ...
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Would the first ribosome and the genetic sequences specifying its components have to evolve simultaneously?
Usually, I think of the mutation coming before the body part. The mutation happens during DNA duplication, which is before birth. The effect of that mutation is seen after birth, as the effect ...
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Why don’t Batesian mimics eradicate their hosts?
I posed this question to my biology professor and he said that “the increase in the number of mimics decreases the fitness of the mimic population, preventing it from surmounting a certain stable ...
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Are there examples of Back-Evolution or to-and-fro evolution?
What I mean by Back-Evolution is the occurrence of examples of evolution going through circles, i.e. evolution resetting itself in some periods of time. The idea is that if mutations occurs randomly ...
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Why are ligers bigger than their parents?
Ligers are the result of breeding between a male lion and a female tiger.One would expect that the liger would have a size in between the size of the lion and tiger however as it turns out ligers are ...
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How do complex traits evolve from base life forms
It is widely known that evolution produces complex and highly useful traits, like eyes, ears, or wings, without any kind of foresight or goal.
Often in popular explanations, we hear that organisms ...
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How can invasive species be explained from an evolutionary perspective?
When an invasive species is introduced in its new environment, it is often superior and a threat to local species. From the perspective of the local species, this is intuitive, as they are not adapted ...
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