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A large body of molecular evidence supports a variety of mechanisms for large evolutionary changes, including: genome and gene duplication, which facilitates rapid evolution by providing substantial quantities of genetic material under weak or no selective constraints; horizontal gene transfer, the process of transferring genetic material to ...
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]
Professor of biology Jerry Coyne sums up biological evolution succinctly: [3]. Life on Earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species – perhaps a self-replicating molecule – that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.
[1] [2] [3] The earliest undisputed evidence of life on Earth dates from at least 3.5 billion years ago. [4] [5] [6] Evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life (covered instead by abiogenesis), but it does explain how early lifeforms evolved into the complex ecosystem that we see today. [7]
Beginning of animal evolution. [54] [55] 720–630 Ma Possible global glaciation [56] [57] which increased the atmospheric oxygen and decreased carbon dioxide, and was either caused by land plant evolution [58] or resulted in it. [59] Opinion is divided on whether it increased or decreased biodiversity or the rate of evolution. [60] [61] [62 ...
Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic information of their parents.
Identity by descent – Identical nucleotide sequence due to inheritance without recombination from a common ancestor; Linkage disequilibrium – Allele association in population genetics; Fisher's fundamental theorem – Principle relating genetic variance to fitness; Neutral theory – Theory of evolution by changes at the molecular level
The basic mechanisms of evolution are applied directly or indirectly to come up with novel designs or solve problems that are difficult to solve otherwise. The research generated in these applied fields, contribute towards progress, especially from work on evolution in computer science and engineering fields such as mechanical engineering. [6]