Posted on 07/10/2006 11:21:37 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Biologists generally accept that evolutionary change can take from decades to millennia, while ecological change can occur over mere days or seasons. However, a new Cornell study shows that evolution and ecology can operate on the same time scale.
When evolution occurs so quickly, the researchers conclude, it can change how populations of various species interact. Ecologists need to consider such evolutionary dynamics in their studies because evolution could affect populations being studied. This insight is critical to predicting the recovery time needed for threatened populations or for predicting disease dynamics, says Justin Meyer '04, who conducted the study as an undergraduate student with Cornell ecologists Stephen Ellner, Nelson Hairston and colleagues.
To observe ecological and evolutionary changes together, the researchers monitored the ecological fluctuations in a model predator-prey laboratory system: a microscopic organism called a rotifer that eats a single-celled algae.
Meyer developed a method to track genetic changes, and the researchers found that as the prey population fluctuated, the algae "evolved" from a type that grows quickly to a type that resists being eaten. The frequency of the algal-genotype changes in response to rotifer population flux clearly demonstrated the synchronicity of ecological and evolutionary time.
The study is published in the July 11 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Yeah, but what about LAB DEMONSTRATIONS????
So much for "can't be reproduced in a lab."
Of course, the fall back(s) will be:
(1)"this proves intelligent design, not evolution!"
(2) "yeah, but it's still an XYZ. It didn't change into a ABC." and/or
(3) "These traits already existed; there's nothing new here."
you mean like how certain bacteria can develop a resistance to antibiotics ? which is basically called adaptation ?
"But it's still an algae!"
adaptation is a type of evolution too
You really must find a new hobby. Evo is a sick, twisted myth, and to brag that you are a true brainwahed Kool-Aid drinker only diminishes you further,...if that's possible.
Yeah...playing the "evidence" card like that. Shameful.
That was a really constructive post.
The knife-edged logical manner in which the post addressed and countered the facts and arguments in the article really made your true point better that anything I have ever seen.
And the best part was that you did no sink to hyperbole or personal attacks!
Oh, sweet. A scientist has demonstrated adaptation occurs. Who woulda guessed? And?
>>the algae "evolved" from a type that grows quickly to a type that resists being eaten.<<
I noticed the word "evolved" is in quotes. Why is that? The begged question is, did the type that resists being eaten already exist, albeit in small numbers, before the aledged "evolution" took place? If it did, then this is not evolution of an algae, it is evolution of the characteristcs of a population of algae.
If you have a part of the country that has a population made up equally of black bears and Polar bears, and one day the temperature drops substantially, and it stays that way for ten years, you will notice that there will be a lot more polar bears, and many less black bears. But nothing evolved, even if the black bears died out completely. Natural selection would simply have chosen the strongest of two EXISTING types, elimintating one. The diversity of the poplulation was reduced, not expanded.
Exactly. They need to prove that an actual change in DNA occurred not that a particular trait was favored but already existed.
Civil discussion placemarker ...
Is the "it's not evolution, it's adaption" line the new 2nd law of thermodynamics style talking point?
I've been avoiding reading more than the article on these threads because of such luddite nonsense.
Bit like saying, "it's not a dozen eggs; it's twelve eggs, you crevo-idiot. Can't you see?!@"
That was a good and civil post.
Wrong, mind you, but good and civil. :)
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