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Overview:
In lecture two of a four part series, evolutionary biologist David Kingsley discusses how just a few small genetic changes can have a big effect on morphology, using examples from maize, dog breeding, and stickleback fish.
This lecture is available from Howard Hughes' BioInteractive website.Author/Source:
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grade level:
13-16 Time:
60 minutes Teaching tips:
Though originally developed for high school students, this lecture will also be useful for college students. Concepts:
Correspondence to the Next Generation Science Standards is indicated in parentheses after each relevant concept. See our conceptual framework for details. - Artificial selection provides a model for natural selection.
- People selectively breed domesticated plants and animals to produce offspring with preferred characteristics.
- Evolution results from natural selection acting upon genetic variation within a population.
- Complex structures may be produced incrementally by the accumulation of smaller advantageous mutations.
- Speciation is the splitting of one ancestral lineage into two or more descendent lineages.
- Occupying new environments can provide new selection pressures and new opportunities, leading to speciation.
- As with other scientific disciplines, evolutionary biology has applications that factor into everyday life, for example in agriculture, biodiversity and conservation biology, and medicine and health.
- Scientists use multiple lines of evidence (including morphological, developmental, and molecular evidence) to infer the relatedness of taxa.
- Scientists use experimental evidence to study evolutionary processes.
- Scientists use artificial selection as a model to learn about natural selection.
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