The Darwin-Wallace Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

Here is a bit of a summary:

I. Observation 1: Organisms produce more offspring than are needed to replace the parents
II. Observation 2: Natural populations tend to remain stable over long periods.
A. Deduction 1: There is a competition/struggle for survival.
III. Observation 3: There is variation among individuals of different species
A. Deduction 2: The best adapted variants (selective advantage) will be selected for (natural
selection) by the natural conditions (selection pressure) operating at the time.
Basics of Species and Speciation
Speciation: The production of a new species.
Species: A group of organisms, with similar morphological, biochemical, physiological, and
behavioural features, which can interbreed to produce fertile offspring and are reproductively
isolated from other species.
Reproductive isolation: The inability of two groups of the same species to interbreed with one
another.

- Morphological = structural
- Physiological = functional
- Biochemical = e.g. DNA, amino acid sequences
- How to find out if organisms are different species: See if they can interbreed to produce fertile
offspring.
However, this is sometimes impossible or difficult because:
1. Organisms may be dead (e.g. fossils)
2. Only organisms of one sex may be present.
3. Biologists may not have sufficient time or money to try interbreeding.
4. The organisms may reproduce asexually
5. The organisms may be immature and not able to breed yet.
- There are two types of reproductive isolation:
Pre zygotic
- Individuals not recognising one another as potential mates or not responding to mating
behaviour
- Animals being physically unable to mate
- Incompatibility of pollen to stigma in plants
- Inability of the male gamete to fuse with the female gamete
Post zygotic
- Failure of cell division in the zygote
- Non-viable offspring (offspring that soon die)
- Viable, but sterile offspring
- Since speciation takes so long, it is very difficult to do experiments on reproductive isolation.

Allopatric Speciation
Allopatric Speciation: Speciation that occurs as a result of two populations living in different places
and having no contact with each other (geographic isolation).
- This happens when a part of a population is separated (e.g. by a sea or a dense forest) from the
rest of the population.
This new environment may have different selection pressures, resulting in different allele
frequencies.
After many generations the two groups are so different that they cannot interbreed to produce
fertile offspring.
- Remember: Smaller organisms can be affected by smaller physical barriers.

Sympatric Speciation
Sympatric speciation: The emergence of a new species from another species when the two
species are living in the same place. It occurs, for example, due to polyploidy.
Polyploidy: When organisms have more than two sets of chromosomes.
Autopolyploidy: When organisms have more than two sets of chromosomes from a single species.
Allopolyploidy: When organisms have more than two sets of chromosomes, where the
chromosomes come from different species.
Tetraploid: An organism with four sets of chromosomes.
Triploid: An organism that has three sets of chromosomes.
- Sympatric speciation usually occurs in plants.
- Autopolyploidy:
Something goes wrong during meiosis and gametes end up with two sets of chromosomes.
Two such gametes fuse to form a tetraploid
- The tetraploid is sterile because bivalents cannot form during prophase 1 (in meiosis 1)
because all four chromosomes attempt to pair up. Thus, meiosis does not occur.
- The tetraploid can also not interbreed to form fertile offspring with either of the parent
species because it would form triploid. Triploids will be sterile because there is no way for
the chromosomes to pair up in meiosis.
- Therefore, the tetraploid is a different species than the parent species.
- Allopolyploidy:
Allopolyploids are more likely to be fertile. This is because the chromosomes from different
species will not pair up and only chromosomes of the same species will pair up.
Example of how allopolyploidy leads to sympatric speciation:
- Two plant species interbreed to form a sterile hybrid. It is sterile because the parent
chromosomes do not pair up in meiosis 1. This hybrid reproduces asexually by producing
long underground stems called rhizomes, from which plants grow.
- The diploid hybrid produces some cells with double the chromosome number (probably
through the fusion of two abnormal diploid gametes.
- The Allotetraploid is fertile because the chromosomes it has can pair up with each other,
two and two.