Related topics: genes

Wildflowers combat climate change with diversity

In 1859, when Charles Darwin first articulated the theory of evolution, he speculated that a process of natural selection led species to adapt to their environments over time. He believed traits that helped an organism survive ...

Genetic mutation trade-offs lead to parallel evolution

Organisms in nature adapt and evolve in complex environments. For example, when subjected to changes in nutrients, antibiotics, and predation, microbes in the wild face the challenge of adapting multiple traits at the same ...

Genetic analysis of the American eel helps explain its decline

The American eel has been a concern for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since 2007, when it was first considered for, but failed to receive, Endangered Species Act protection. The numbers of these slender, slimy, ancient ...

'Eyespots' in butterflies shown to distract predatory attack

Research has demonstrated with some of the first experimental evidence that coloration or patterns can be used to "deflect" attacks from predators, protecting an animal's most vulnerable parts from the predators most likely ...

Is the outcome of evolution predictable?

If one would rewind the tape of life, would evolution result in the same outcome? The Harvard evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould came up with this famous thought experiment. He suggested that evolution would not repeat ...

Pygmy phenotype developed many times, adaptive to rainforest

The small body size associated with the pygmy phenotype is probably a selective adaptation for rainforest hunter-gatherers, according to an international team of researchers, but all African pygmy phenotypes do not have the ...

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