BIO2022 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Evolutionary Ecology, Disruptive Selection, Directional Selection
7 Aug 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Ecology understanding how organisms interact with each other and their environment. Evolutionary ecology is down to ecologically patterns which are impacted upon by: physiology, genetics, evolutionary process, behaviour. Evolutionary biology understanding diversity of life and processes at work. On the origin of species charles darwin and alfred russel wallace figured out that traits are passed down and the theory of inheritance without even knowing what genes were. Selection: directional selection, stabilising selection, disruptive selection, frequency dependent selection. Favours the individuals with the desirable characteristic, ie natural selection. Ultimate causes of the speed of a cheetah is that it has to catch prey so it can eat and survive ie natural selection so this favours the faster cheetahs. Therefore there is also an arms race between the predators and the prey to evolve to better catch/escape. Selection pressures for both sides of the spectru(cid:373) (cid:373)ea(cid:374) that the populatio(cid:374) does(cid:374)"t (cid:272)ha(cid:374)ge directionally since the middle form is the most beneficial.
