Portal:Evolutionary biology

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Evolutionary biology

Evolutionary biology is a sub-field of biologyconcerned with the origin and descent of species, as well as their change, multiplication, and diversity over time. Biologically, evolution is the change in the inherited traitsof a populationfrom generation to generation. These traits are the expressionof genesthat are copied and passed on to offspring during reproduction. Mutationsin these genes can produce new or altered traits, resulting in heritable differences (genetic variation) between organisms. New traits can also come from transfer of genes between populations, as in migration, or between species, in horizontal gene transfer. Evolution occurs when these heritable differences become more common or rare in a population, either non-randomly through natural selectionor randomly through genetic drift.

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Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species (publ. 1859) is a seminal work in scientific literature and arguably the pivotal work in evolutionary biology. The book's full title is On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. It introduced the theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. It was controversial because it contradicted religious beliefs which underlay the then current theories of biology. Darwin's book was the culmination of evidence he had accumulated on the voyage of the Beagle in the 1830s and expanded through continuing investigations and experiments since his return. The book is readable even for the non-specialist and attracted widespread interest on publication. The book was controversial, and generated much discussion on scientific, philosophical, and religious grounds. The scientific theory of evolution has itself evolved since Darwin first presented it, but natural selection remains the most widely accepted scientific model of how species evolve. The at-times bitter creation-evolution controversy continues to this day. ...Archive/Nominations

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Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The passenger pigeon, one of several species of extinct birds, was hunted to extinction over the course of a few decades.

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Did you know...

...that adaptations enable living organisms to cope with environmental stresses and pressures?
...that maintained gene flow between two populations can also lead to a combination of the two gene pools, reducing the genetic variation between the two groups?
...that all forms of natural speciation have taken place over the course of evolution, though it still remains a subject of debate as to the relative importance of each mechanism in driving biodiversity?
...that despite the relative rarity of suitable conditions for fossilization, approximately 250,000 fossil species are known?
...that genetic sequence evidence thus allows inference and quantification of genetic relatedness between humans and other apes?

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Improve: List of prehistoric mammals, List of extinct plants, Holocene extinction event
Stubs: Acritarch | Analogy (biology) | Evolutionary arms race | Genetic erosion | Hoyle's fallacy | Macromutation | Maladaptation | Evolutionary capacitance | Evolutionary graph theory | Evolutionary landscape | Evolutionary taxonomy | Landrace | Law of Life | Law of Limited Competition (more...)
Nominate and vote: Science collaboration of the month, Article Improvement Drive

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WikiProjects

WikiProjects connected with biology:

A complete list of scientific WikiProjects can be found here. See also Wikispecies, a Wikimedia project dedicated to classification of biological species.

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