OEB 53 Chapter Notes -Selective Breeding

• School: Harvard University
• Department: Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
• Course: OEB 53
• Professor: Andrew Berry

Document Summary

The origin of the species: chapter 5 (laws of variation) The effects of use and disuse seem to puzzle darwin. Darwin is unsure whether change is a result of disuse leading to atrophy or rather, change results from natural selection reducing the structure. He notes that in cases of artificial selection, it is easy to conclude that use in domestic animals enhances certain parts, while disuse diminishes them, but it is more difficult to observe natural organisms. Darwin, in examining different examples, comes to differing conclusions as to what causes change. For example, when talking about blind animals in caves, he attributes loss of eyes to disuse, because he thinks that the useless eyes could not negatively impact the organisms and thus, not be acted upon by selection. What are the implications of what darwin calls correlation of growth? .