BIOL 1020U Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Mutation, Meiosis, Chromosome
Document Summary
Species that differ as adults often bear similarities as embryos. All of these vertebrates have a common underlying framework that guides development. It is only later in development that you will have a species specific tweak that causes them to develop into their own unique species. Today we know that conserved homeotic genes responsible in part for embryo similarity. Individuals do not evolve, populations evolve as the relative frequency of the individuals with heritable differences changes. Some evolution is neutral (mutation in nonfunctional dna). Evolved characteristics e(cid:374)ha(cid:374)ci(cid:374)g a(cid:374) orga(cid:374)is(cid:373) s survival or reproduction in a particular environment. May be structural, physiological, behavioural, or a combination. The same observation can have both an immediate, mechanistic = proximate explanation (how) not requiring evolutionary thinking, and a more fundamental, historical = ultimate explanation (why) involving an evolutionary perspective. Includes all the alleles for all the loci present in the population. Usually theoretically, you rarely see a physical representation of the gene pool.
