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Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. [1] [2] It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. [3]
Evolutionary dynamics is the study of the mathematical principles according to which biological organisms as well as cultural ideas evolve and evolved. [1] This is mostly achieved through the mathematical discipline of population genetics , along with evolutionary game theory.
There is much discussion within the scientific community concerning the mechanisms behind the evolutionary process. For example, the rate at which evolution occurs is still under discussion. In addition, there are conflicting opinions as to which is the primary unit of evolutionary change—the organism or the gene.
Darwin's finches. Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth.
Techniques from evolutionary algorithms applied to the modeling of biological evolution are generally limited to explorations of microevolutionary processes and planning models based upon cellular processes. In most real applications of EAs, computational complexity is a prohibiting factor. [3]
In other words, microevolution is the scale of evolution that is limited to intraspecific (within-species) variation, while macroevolution extends to interspecific (between-species) variation. [4] The evolution of new species is an example of macroevolution. This is the common definition for 'macroevolution' used by contemporary scientists.
Example for a trait under positive selection. The Price equation shows that a change in the average amount of a trait in a population from one generation to the next is determined by the covariance between the amounts of the trait for subpopulation and the fitnesses of the subpopulations, together with the expected change in the amount of the trait value due to fitness, namely ():
Also called functionalism. The Darwinian view that many or most physiological and behavioral traits of organisms are adaptations that have evolved for specific functions or for specific reasons (as opposed to being byproducts of the evolution of other traits, consequences of biological constraints, or the result of random variation). adaptive radiation The simultaneous or near-simultaneous ...