PALEO200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Convergent Evolution, Marsupial Mole, Yutyrannus

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Paleontology
• Course: PALEO200
• Professor: Angelica Torices

Document Summary

Organisms tend to resemble their parents, because parent organisms pass on some or all of their genetic code to offspring. Occasionally, organisms are produced that have novel traits or novel trait variation. One source of these novelties is genetic mutation o. If unchecked, organisms can produce more offspring than can ultimately be sustained in any environment. Because of this, some organisms do not survive; this means that organisms of different species must compete for resources. This process will naturally repeat with more and more advantageous traits building up in a population, and eventually enough traits will accumulate and the genetic code will be so different ancestors that it will constitute a new species o. Often incorrectly said, that evolution is a random process. While genetic mutations may occur randomly, the evolutionary process that weeds out disadvantageous mutations and favours advantageous mutations is a selective process.