Re: Rapidly Evolvling Lizards may not be evolving at all.

In message <NI3Sj.12179$V14.11834@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Vernon Balbert <vbalbert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
On 4/30/2008 12:17 PM, John Harshman went clickity clack on the keyboard and produced this interesting bit of text:
Vernon Balbert wrote:
On 4/30/2008 11:25 AM, Vend went clickity clack on the keyboard and produced this interesting bit of text:
On 30 Apr, 19:18, "Robert J. Kolker" <bobkol...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
If you put Mr. Lizard in an environment in which he can flourish because
food is plentiful and there are not predators to compete with him, then
it looks like he evolved. But this is not necessarily the case. He may
be flourishing, which is not the same as evolving.

Natural selection can be as much a friend as a foe. Put a life form in
the right environment and it will flourish without any radical change to
its genome.

I don't think so.
Neutral evolution should still happen.

I don't know enough to say yea or nay to what you say, but what about rabbits in Australia, snakehead fish in the Potomac river and other species introduced by man into areas that have ravaged the ecosystems which were ill-equipped to handle the new species?
What about them?

I'd like to know how neutral evolution has occurred with these invasive species.

Just because a species colonises an environment in which it is free from prior constraints (such as predators) doesn't mean that it stops evolving. In fact I suspect that invasive populations on average undergo more adaptive evolution that there stay-at-home cousins - they're experiencing different selective pressures.

For example, adaptive evolution has apparently occurred with cane toads in Australia. On a blog (Evolving Thoughts?) it was written that at the front of the expansion of cane toad range they are adapted for more effective dispersal, and within the interior of the range those adaptations are lost.
--
alias Ernest Major

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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Rapidly Evolvling Lizards may not be evolving at all.
    ... which is not the same as evolving. ... other species introduced by man into areas that have ravaged the ... I'd like to know how neutral evolution has occurred with these invasive ... On a blog it was written that at the ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Rapidly Evolvling Lizards may not be evolving at all.
    ... which is not the same as evolving. ... Natural selection can be as much a friend as a foe. ... other species introduced by man into areas that have ravaged the ... I'd like to know how neutral evolution has occurred with these invasive ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Rapidly Evolvling Lizards may not be evolving at all.
    ... other species introduced by man into areas that have ravaged the ... I'd like to know how neutral evolution has occurred with these invasive ... prior constraints doesn't mean that it stops evolving. ... Note that there may be selection operating on part of the genome while other parts of the genome are evolving neutrally. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Rapidly Evolvling Lizards may not be evolving at all.
    ... which is not the same as evolving. ... Natural selection can be as much a friend as a foe. ... other species introduced by man into areas that have ravaged the ... I'd like to know how neutral evolution has occurred with these invasive ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: So who here has evolved?
    ... Anyone here feel themselves evolving? ... or a bullet in war) spread throughout the species. ... That would be evolution in action. ... they have shorter limbs and are slightly ...
    (talk.origins)