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An example of ecosystem variables being influenced by evolution is a mesocosm experiment using Trinidadian guppies. Predation pressure in an environment caused evolutionary changes in the life-history traits of the guppies, which affected ecosystem processes. [4]
This means that environmental cues can influence the development of the organism’s offspring. This is similar to the evolution theory of Lamarck. He stated that an organism can pass physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime on to its offspring.
Evolution is an inevitable result of imperfectly copying, self-replicating organisms reproducing over billions of years under the selective pressure of the environment. The outcome of evolution is not a perfectly designed organism. The end products of natural selection are organisms that are adapted to their present environments.
Ecology and Evolutionary biology in North America is based on research impact determined by the top 10% of ecology programs. The interactive web of organisms and environment are all part of what the field of Ecology explores. There have been studies in evolution that have worked to prove that "modern organisms have developed from ancestral ones."
The role of epigenetics in evolution is clearly linked to the selective pressures that regulate that process. As organisms leave offspring that are best suited to their environment, environmental stresses change DNA gene expression that is further passed down to their offspring, allowing for them also to better thrive in their environment.
A prerequisite for natural selection to result in adaptive evolution, novel traits and speciation is the presence of heritable genetic variation that results in fitness differences. Genetic variation is the result of mutations, genetic recombinations and alterations in the karyotype (the number, shape, size and internal arrangement of the ...
For example, the trait of web construction by orb-web spiders has been shaped by natural selection and is passed onto subsequent generations through genetic inheritance; spider webs are not a form of ecological inheritance because they are too transient and do not affect the evolution of multi-generational populations of spiders via niche ...
Ecological genetics tie into evolutionary ecology through the study of how traits evolve in natural populations. [8] Ecologists are concerned with how the environment and timeframe leads to genes becoming dominant. Organisms must continually adapt in order to survive in natural habitats. Genes define which organisms survive and which will die out.