Free Essays, Term Papers, Research Papers at Anti Essays

o List and describe the evidence for evolution, which was presented by Darwin
“Natural Selection”
States that favourable variations on species are selected and harmful ones are eliminated according to the ability to survive in the environment.
The four main points outlining natural selection are
o No species has identical members
o In every generation there are offspring that do not reach maturity, and as a result, the characteristics of these members are not carried on as they do not reproduce
o Favourable variations allow for the adaptation of the stronger organisms to occur (survival of the fittest)
o Favourable variations are passed on to offspring to allow for that trait to become more apparent in a species

E.G.
“Darwin observed (while on his visit to Australia)crows like our English jackdaws were not uncommon, and another bird something like a magpie. He also saw a rat-kangaroo (a potoroo) which he compared to a European rabbit both in size and behaviour”(2)

Natural selection also leads to the evolution of new species. For example; by studying the skeletal and muscular structure in the Hawaiian honeycreeper, scientists were able to find similarities and could confirm that the current 23 species of honeycreepers all evolved from one ancestral species. This is a type of divergent evolution called adaptive radiation, which occurs when a species inhibits a habitat where there are few competing species.
The other type of evolution is convergent evolution, which is where two seemingly unrelated species become more and more alike in order to survive in similar environments.

The final type of evolution is coevolution. This is where two or more species that are in close interaction with each other change together, such as predators and their prey, or between plants and the animals that pollinate them.

E.G. “In tropical regions bats...