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

Dan Drake <dd@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:51:18 UTC, coaster <coasterpro@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

An invasive species could, by pure chance,
find its self in an environment in which it is even more fit than the
environment within which it evolved. Provided that the population's
new environment remains relatively stable, or changes in the new
environment fail to affect the population's overall fitness, then
there is every reason to assume that, although the species will
continue to evolve, it will remain relatively unchanged in appearance
throughout the eons; or as long as the stability/luck lasts. The
questions are; How often does this really happen? Under what
conditions is it most likely to happen? What are the implications if
it does happen?

Wouldn't the Australians have something to say about rabbits? Or am I
misunderstanding the question? Californians, in any case, can tell a good
deal about a species of Eucalyptus that apparently is not an invasive
nuisance in Australia, nor famous for breaking and falling over without
warning, sometimes on a calm summer day; though I suppose it functions
equally well as a giant torch on any continent.

We tell campers not to set their tents up under eucalypts for that evry
reason. They drop heavy branches.

They also burn well - you have to keep the fire small and regular to
prevent a major blaze. They aren't behaving any differently in
California (or south America or Israel or the other places they got
taken to in the nineteenth century).

Typically invaders lack predators and prarsites that control their
population growth. This means they can crowd out indigenes that are well
adapted, because they have a higher rate of increase (and not because
they are better adapted ecologically). It can take centuries for some
controls to evolve naturally, at which point the entire ecosystem is
changed.

(I have read that it simply grows too fast in California, producing a
weakened trunk that cracks easily. This was some years after a sunny, calm
day on which I heard loud cracking sounds, followed by swishing sounds,
followed by an enormous impact that severely shook the house, partly
because of the power lines that the tree fell on. Good luck: it was some
distance up the street, with no house to fall on. A while after reading
the book, I walked on a trail lined with sections of trunks from that
beloved species, and noted that they tended to be full of major cracks,
such as I haven't seen in other tree trunks; so I'm inclined to believe in
the bride-is-too-beautiful theory.

I actually *like* the trees. But they have their little ways.)


--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Philosophy
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."

.

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