Fareeha Khan Seminar C2

LLOG 4

Synopsis

Examples of natural selection are not extremely difficult to find, if one looks closely enough. For example, the colobus monkey has adapted to survive in an environment where leaves are the only available food. They have large, protruding stomachs that can hold up to six pounds of leaves. Bacteria fill their guts to speed up the digestive process. These features have developed over generations of monkeys trying to make it in the big forest. Another example is simply that of color vision. Humans that have the trait often take it for granted, not realizing how much their colorblind cohorts are missing out on. However, we are missing out on even more that has just been discovered. Certain animals, such as birds and insects, can see ultraviolet color. Color vision is actually a good way to understand evolution and origin. It is ridiculously useful, has adapted for animals in different habitats (i.e. ocean, caves, etc), and the genes that make color vision have been studied intensely and there is an immense amount of knowledge about the biology of the trait. Those who study evolution can easily link factors in their work to what is already known about color vision. Humans have different pigments that help them to see short, medium, and long wavelengths of sunlight. The proteins that make up these pigments are called opsin genes. There are a different number of opsin genes in all species of animals. Throughout time, the number of these genes has increased or decreased due to evolution. This is done through gene duplication, which creates more genes and increases the information in DNA. The new and old genes become separated and take on different functions. By studying which species lost or gained opsin genes we will be able to better understand how the evolutionary process works. In order to study this, detailed information about different animals and the relationships among them are needed. For example, if two species have a similar trait that can be traced back to a common ancestor who had a version of the trait pre-adaptation we can learn how these separate species came about. Charles Darwin, author of On the Origin of Species wrote The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. He discovered the vital relationship of the opposite sexes’. This was a landmark discovery in furthering the study of evolution. It was the beginning of what led researchers to ask questions that has aided in achieving for us all the information about evolution that we have now. This leads into reminiscing upon the discovery of the three pancreatic ribonuclease gene in the colobus monkeys that don oversized stomachs. Two of these genes evolved into a part of a working digestive system while the other kept its job in the pancreas. Another example of evolution is how