Evolution Doesn't Always Take Millions of Years
How about 20 generations over an 8 year time frame!?
When Evolution Is Not So Slow And Gradual
ScienceDaily (June 3, 2009)
What's the secret to surviving during times of environmental change? Evolve…quickly.
Adapted from materials provided by University of Chicago Press Journals.
A new article in The American Naturalist finds that guppy populations introduced into new habitats developed new and advantageous traits in just a few years. This is one of only a few studies to look at adaptation and survival in a wild population.
A research team led by Swanne Pamela Gordon from the University of California, Riverside studied 200 guppies that had been taken from the Yarra River in Trinidad and introduced into two different environments in the nearby Damier River, which previously had no guppies. One Damier environment was predator-free. The other contained fish that occasionally snack on guppies.
Eight years after their introduction, the team revisited the Damier guppies to see what adaptive changes they might have picked up in their new environments. The researchers found that the females had altered their reproductive effort to match their surroundings. In the environment where predators were present, females produced more embryos each reproductive cycle. This makes sense because where predators abound, one might not get a second chance to reproduce. In less dangerous waters, females produced fewer embryos each time, thus expending fewer resources on reproduction.
Finally, the researchers wanted to see if these adaptive changes actually helped the new population to survive. So they took more guppies from the Yarra, marked them, and put them in the Damier alongside the ones that had been there for eight years. They found that the adapted guppies had a significant survival advantage over the more recently introduced group.
In particular, juveniles from the adapted population had a 54 to 59 percent increase in survival rate over those from the newly introduced group. In the long run, survival of juveniles is crucial to the survival of the population, the researchers say.
The fact that fitness differences were found after only eight years shows just how fast evolution can work—for short-lived species anyway.
"The changes in survival in our study may initially seem encouraging from a conservation perspective," the authors write. "[B]ut it is important to remember that the elapsed time frame was 13-26 guppy generations. The current results may therefore provide little solace for biologists and managers concerned with longer-lived species."
When Evolution Is Not So Slow And Gradual
ScienceDaily (June 3, 2009)
What's the secret to surviving during times of environmental change? Evolve…quickly.
Adapted from materials provided by University of Chicago Press Journals.
A new article in The American Naturalist finds that guppy populations introduced into new habitats developed new and advantageous traits in just a few years. This is one of only a few studies to look at adaptation and survival in a wild population.A research team led by Swanne Pamela Gordon from the University of California, Riverside studied 200 guppies that had been taken from the Yarra River in Trinidad and introduced into two different environments in the nearby Damier River, which previously had no guppies. One Damier environment was predator-free. The other contained fish that occasionally snack on guppies.
Eight years after their introduction, the team revisited the Damier guppies to see what adaptive changes they might have picked up in their new environments. The researchers found that the females had altered their reproductive effort to match their surroundings. In the environment where predators were present, females produced more embryos each reproductive cycle. This makes sense because where predators abound, one might not get a second chance to reproduce. In less dangerous waters, females produced fewer embryos each time, thus expending fewer resources on reproduction.
Finally, the researchers wanted to see if these adaptive changes actually helped the new population to survive. So they took more guppies from the Yarra, marked them, and put them in the Damier alongside the ones that had been there for eight years. They found that the adapted guppies had a significant survival advantage over the more recently introduced group.
In particular, juveniles from the adapted population had a 54 to 59 percent increase in survival rate over those from the newly introduced group. In the long run, survival of juveniles is crucial to the survival of the population, the researchers say.
The fact that fitness differences were found after only eight years shows just how fast evolution can work—for short-lived species anyway.
"The changes in survival in our study may initially seem encouraging from a conservation perspective," the authors write. "[B]ut it is important to remember that the elapsed time frame was 13-26 guppy generations. The current results may therefore provide little solace for biologists and managers concerned with longer-lived species."
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Matthew on -
I know what makes 2 species different species...I was just wondering if that had happened. Jeez. j/k ;-)
I just read in a book that this definition breaks down a bit with different species arranged in a circle around a barrier. For instance; A, B, C, D, E are found around a lake. A&B can interbreed, as can B&C as well as C&D. But A&C or A&D cannot. But this case doesn't really involve that so I'm not sure why I'm writing all this. Just interesting, I guess.
I suppose a radioactive isotope would be a bit much for such a small fish. Unless someone else finds otherwise, I'll go with your tattoo idea to set my mind at ease.
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Permalink Reply by Laura on -
I'm sticking with bedazzled guppy collars, but I guess that's why I'm not the scientist.
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Permalink Reply by Nelson on -
lol. aw crap! i misunderstood your question then! sorry Matthew! :)
it is interesting. it sounds like you're describing "ring species."
:D glad i could help put your mind at ease!
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Permalink Reply by Matthew on
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It's o.k. Nelson. I usually find your scientific explanations very helpful.
YES! Ring species. I couldn't think of the term. See there...very helpful indeed.
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Permalink Reply by Stacy B on -
I had to go search for the answer to that and this is what I found in the methodology of one guppy study:
"We used a commercially available elastomer (Northwest Marine Technologies) and marked the fish with a subcutaneous injection in the caudal peduncle."
caudal peduncle: The narrow part of a fish's body to which the caudal or tail fin is attached.
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Permalink Reply by Matthew on
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LOL. This is just awesome.
I love this site and its members because, as you have proven StacyB, others are just as nerdy and want answers just as much as I do. Oh, a tattoo seemed reasonable and I was too lazy to figure it out for sure. But deep down I really did wonder.
Thank you. Both for your answer, and for making me feel like one of the crowd. (even if it is an awfully nerdy crowd!)
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Permalink Reply by Stacy B on
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lulz. :D
StacyB :hearts: the nerds!!!
Besides, who doesn't want to know how researchers manage to mark 10 mm fish?!
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Permalink Reply by Johnny on -
Speaking of dogs and species...
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Permalink Reply by Matthew on
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Interesting article. The comments below are interesting as well (and worth reading).
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Permalink Reply by Rev. James Thomas Hicks, D.D. on -
I've always agreed with this.
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