Progressions- Evolution of Life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eadweard_Muybridge#Stanford_and_horse_gaits

In 1878 the above sequence of images was taken by Eadweard Muybridge to settle a debate among horse racers--when a horse was galloping full speed, did they ever have all four legs off the ground?  The human eye alone was not fast enough to resolve the dispute.  Muybridge, the photographer who was called in, set up a sequence of cameras that would be set off by trip wires and found that horses are in fact completely air born at certain points within a full gallop. (Watch the video of this horse here.)

Based on these images alone, though, how do we know that the horse was actually running?  Couldn't the pictures have been of different horses?  Couldn't they have been jumping and not running?  This is more than just a thought experiment.  We're asking if it's justified to tie different pieces of information together to form a progression, just like we do in evolution.  Below we will explore several examples of biological progressions and ask what evidence there is that they represent evolutionary change over time.

Claim: Species have changed over time--descent with modification

Prediction: If evolution is true and species have changed over time, then we would expect there to be examples of this preserved in rock strata, across geography, in a lab, or in recorded history.

Falsification: Progressions of change across time do not exist.  Species are shown to be unchangeable.

Observations:  Fossil progressions, microevolution, biogeography (see examples below).

Corroboration: Dating techniques confirms the progression’s sequence. Multiple traits are held in common by the organisms showing relatedness.

Inference:  Provided with this gradual gradation in a trait we can infer that the species are related (though not necessarily direct descendants--evolution tends to meander).

Examples:

• Fossil progressions
  • The fossil record demonstrates not only large scale changes across time, phyla, but also within individual species.   Three particularly important features are represented within the fossil record.  Firstly, the species represented within the fossil record are often vastly different from the life of today.  Secondly, is that the the fossils are separately and distinctly layered.  Meaning, that we don’t find rabbit fossils in the Pre-Cambrian layers, nor dinosaurs mixed in with mammoths.  Lastly, both on the macro and micro scale of the fossil record we see trends of change that progress through time.

Whale evolution

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_03

Individual traits such as leg/pelvis position, nostril location, and ankle bones can also be traced back to the early artiodactyls that led to modern day whales.

http://www.bio.georgiasouthern.edu/bio-home/harvey/lect/lectures.html?flnm=evel&ttl=Evolution&ccode=el&mda=scrn

http://tinyfrog.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/pz-myers-vs-geoffrey-simmons-discovery-institute/

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_03

This is another image showing the homology between ancient whale ancestors (Pakicetus) and modern day even-toed ungulates (like pig and deer). Dogs were included on the far left as a contrast typical of non-even-toed ungulates.
http://www.bio.miami.edu/dana/160/160S13_5.html

   

http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2006/08/15/the-origin-of-the-ridiculous/

http://coastalpaleo.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/05/23/no-genes-were-lost-in-the-maki/

The transition from toothed whale to baleen whale also has left transition fossils. This can be seen in the pattern of blood vessels on the roof of Aetiocetus weltoni's mouth that are highly similar to those used today to nourish the areas that produce the keratin baleen.

http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/22/baleen-whales-a-lovely-transitional-form/
Original article: http://www.sdnhm.org/archive/research/paleontology/DemereMorphoBaleenTeeth.pdf

  Horse

http://www.mberg.com.au/dietary-changes-and-the-evolution-of-the-horse/

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_horse

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_horse

Tetrapod

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_02

We can even track individual traits, like skull bones and limb structure. Humans

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_07

http://media.hhmi.org/biointeractive/posters/2011%20human%20evolution.jpg

 

http://distraffscience.blogspot.com/2012/03/overview-of-human-evolution.html

   

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/adaptable-human.html

 

http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2007/10/23/troodon-sapiens-thoughts-on-th/

http://visual.ly/timeline-hominid-evolution

Notice the transition from long scapulas with oblique scapular spines good for arboreal climbing turned more horizontal as we began to climb and hang less.
http://openi.nlm.nih.gov/detailedresult.php?img=2860095_10764_2010_9399_Fig6_HTML&req=4http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6106/514.figures-onlyhttp://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6106/478.figures-only

  Bird

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_06

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v2/n8/full/ncomms1437.html

http://palaeoblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/gene-expression-in-alligators-suggests.html

http://ncse.com/rncse/21/5-6/more-birds-dinosaurs

 

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6049/1619.full

 

http://emilywilloughby.com/gallery/skeletals-and-diagrams/feather-evolution

A common evolutionary strategy to change the phenotype of a species is to change the developmental progression that leads to that phenotype. This diagram is showing how bird evolution progressed to have the adult phenotypes look like the juvenile phenotype of the ancestral species.
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/birds-may-be-paedomorphic-dinosaurs/
Also
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/science/skull-analysis-charts-the-changes-from-dinosaurs-to-birds.html?_r=0

Brachiopods

http://www.pnas.org/content/105/14/5430.figures-only

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/eocoelia.html

Diatom

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4096816?origin=JSTOR-pdf
See pictures of diatom spines and valves to better understand what this graph represents: http://westerndiatoms.colorado.edu/taxa/species/stephanodiscus_yellowstonensis

Foraminifera

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evograms_05

 

http://daphne.palomar.edu/ccarpenter/reptile%20to%20mammals.htm

Trilobites

 

Turtles

Read more: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/more-about-turtles/
Other resources:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/turtle-origins/
And
http://www.elsevier.com/connect/how-the-turtle-got-its-shell-clues-revealed-by-fossils

Elephant

http://perlacopernik.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/the-mighty-elephant-the-real-king-of-the-savanna/
Also interesting:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6063/1699.figures-only
http://kozmopolitaydinlar.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/5508/fillerin-evrimi-2/

      Microevolution - There have been many instances where the observed change within a species is fast enough that it can be tracked by researchers.  Extending these trend lines into the future we can see how major adaptive changes can add up over time. Soapberry bugs

http://www.evolution-textbook.org/content/free/figures/03_EVOW_Art/08_EVOW_CH03.jpg

Three-spine stickleback fish

Summary: Put stickleback fish in a freshwater environment (they were transplants from salt water, but can survive in both) and over time they lose their protective, boney plates. They likely do so to conserve energy since their environment has different predatory pressures and less food during the winter.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081010100457.htm

http://courseconnector.uoregon.edu/bi-131-intro-evolution

"Fig. 2. Evolution of lateral plate morph frequencies in Loberg lake between 1990 and 2007. Besides complete and low lateral plate morphs, we recognize three intermediate phenotypes described in Bell et al. (2004). These are "intermediate partials"(IP), partial morphs, and "intermediate lows"(IL). Notice that the frequency of the three intermediate phenotypes remained relatively low and constant throughout the time series."
http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/ee/belllab/loberg.html

Salmon

Pink salmon (Oncorhyncus gorbuscha) are getting smaller. Multiple reasons are possible but one is that fishermen have been consistently taking the largest, thus resulting in their reduced size through a form of artificial selection.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/10/3/l_103_02.html

Bacteria: Because of their short generation time, bacteria are excellent subjects to use for evolution experiments.  The longest running experiment is Richard Lenski's E. coli experiment. For some 60,000 generations the bacteria have been grown in a laboratory environment under controlled conditions and given very restrictive diets of sugars and nutrients.   At regular intervals the bacteria are sampled, frozen, and DNA sequenced.   Population growth, fitness, and body size are tracked over time.

http://www.evolution-textbook.org/content/free/figures/17_EVOW_Art/32_EVOW_CH17.jpg

Their average size also increase remarkably:

http://evolutionguide.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/the-best-of-the-lessons-of-evolution-the-longterm-e-coli-evolution-experiment/

  One of the most exciting finds of the study was the explosion of growth in one strain of bacteria that had multiple mutations that enable them to digest citrate in the presence of oxygen.  This ability resulted in the doubling of their population within their beaker.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7417/full/nature11514.html

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2009/10/the-arc-of-evolutionary-genetics-is-long/#.UkBbn9Jwpft

http://evolutionguide.wordpress.com/2011/11/10/the-best-of-the-lessons-of-evolution-the-longterm-e-coli-evolution-experiment/

  Flat periwinkle: The European green crab was introduced to the North Eastern coast of North America in the early 1800's.  These crabs started feeding on flat periwinkles by crushing them with their claws.  By comparing shells from museum specimens prior to the crab introduction to those of current day periwinkles a thickening of the shell was observed (conceivably due to the crab predation).  Subsequently, the natural selection process of thin shelled periwinkles was replicated in an experimental setting.

http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/829/848975/EvoDotsTutorial.pdf

Samoan Blue Moon Butterfly (Hypolimnas bolina): A parasite common to arthropods called Wolbachia is passed through the female line in the egg.  To increase the parasite's chances of getting into the next generation of butterflies the parasite was killing off males.  This resulted in a drastically skewed population distribution with 99% of adults captured being female.  Over 4 years and 10 generations of butterfly the population re-established equilibrium with a 50:50 ratio of female to male.  Researchers believe this is due to the evolution of a repressor gene that inhibits the Wolbachia's biochemical attack. 

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2007/07/16/samoan-butterflies-evolve-rapi/
Also:
http://www.livescience.com/1685-evolution-occurs-blink-eye.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5835/214.full.pdf
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5835/214.abstract

HIV: At this time the most common treatment for HIV are drug "cocktails," which are the combination of multiple drugs that combat HIV.  Isn't that a waste to use multiple drugs to fight one condition?  Not when evolution is taken into account.  HIV evolves incredibly fast for two reasons. 1) It's high population within a human, numbering far into the trillions per individual.  2) It's use of a error prone reverse transcriptase to copy its genes.  This essentially is the perfect storm of drug resistance evolution.  That being the case, the current strategy is to overwhelm the HIV virus making it necessary for it to evolve multiple adaptations at the same time--a feat that is difficult but not impossible and the drugs only currently delay the process of evolution.

http://www.bio.utexas.edu/faculty/sjasper/bio212/histevolth.html
Also:
http://scholar.harvard.edu/pennings/pages/hiv-drug-resistance

  Great lists of observed evolution events: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/evolutionexampl/ http://listverse.com/2011/11/19/8-examples-of-evolution-in-action/ http://phylointelligence.com/observed.html Artificial selection Dogs

http://www.macwebguru.com/2010/09/11/the-dog/

http://annwyn.info/wolf/wolf23.html

Wild mustard

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIE4Evochange.shtml

Corn

http://faculty.uca.edu/johnc/introdarwin.htm

  Biogeography: Because migration can be difficult and take time, biogeography can spatial represent evolutionary change over time.  This phenomena is most obvious in 'ring species' that start spreading slowly over many generations around geographic obstacles, like mountain ranges. The population diverges into two as it spreads around the geographic obstacle and by the time the species meets again on the other side of the obstacle so much time, mutation, genetic drift, and selection has taken place that the two species can no longer interbreed.  Even more interesting is that the two separate species can interbreed with those geographically closest to them from the direction that they migrated. Ensatina salamander of California - The species spread from the north and traveled around the Central Valley and diverged into species that can not mate with each other in the south, due to their divergence, but can mate with the species in the direction that they migrated from.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/devitt_02

 The Greenish Warbler (Phylloscopus nitidus) historically spread around the Himalayas and can interbreed with those from the direction they spread but not those that long ago diverged from them and spread around the opposite side of the mountain range.

http://mappingignorance.org/2013/06/13/speciation-beyond-sexuality-critiques-to-the-biological-species-concept/ Updated genetics: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140525154742.htm

The Larus Gulls of the Northern Hemisphere: Notice the darkening of the feathers in a clockwise direction starting at the bottom.  Gull species near each other can interbreed, except between the Herring Gull and the Lesser Black-Backed Gull that diverged from each other long the longest ago.  This inability to breed tells the story of how the species likely spread overtime around the world and met back up, now no longer able to interbreed.

 

http://darwiniana.org/zimmergulls.htm

 

When species are in a particular location for a long time, genetic diversity tends to go up as new mutations are added to the population. When species migrate into new territories, genetic diversity tends to be low because those new areas are populated by a few individuals. One way of reading this diagram is a time scale. The more genetic diversity in an area, the longer humans have lived there. Darwin knew this and speculated that humans originated in Africa, since most great apes are native there.http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/where-on-earth-did-language-begin/

Fonte: http://www.evolutionevidence.org/evidence/progressions/