Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biology emerged through what Julian Huxley called the modern synthesis of understanding, from previously unrelated fields of biological research, such as genetics and ecology, systematics, and paleontology.
The investigational range of current research has widened to encompass the genetic architecture of adaptation, molecular evolution, and the different forces that contribute to evolution, such as sexual selection, genetic drift, and biogeography. The newer field of evolutionary developmental biology ("evo-devo") investigates how embryogenesis is controlled, thus yielding a wider synthesis that integrates developmental biology with the fields of study covered by the earlier evolutionary synthesis.
Subfields
Evolution is the central unifying concept in biology. Biology can be divided into various ways. One way is by the level of biological organization, from molecular to cell, organism to population. Another way is by perceived taxonomic group, with fields such as zoology, botany, and microbiology, reflecting what was once seen as the major divisions of life. A third way is by approaches, such as field biology, theoretical biology, experimental evolution, and paleontology. These alternative ways of dividing up the subject have been combined with evolutionary biology to create subfields like evolutionary ecology and evolutionary developmental biology.
More recently, the merge between biological science and applied sciences gave birth to new fields that are extensions of evolutionary biology, including evolutionary robotics, engineering,algorithms,economics, and architecture. 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.
In evolutionary developmental biology, scientists look at how the different processes in development play a role in how a specific organism reaches its current body plan. The genetic regulation of ontogeny and the phylogenetic process is what allows for this kind of understanding of biology. By looking at different processes during development, and going through the evolutionary tree, one can determine at which point a specific structure came about.
History
The idea of evolution by natural selection was proposed by Charles Darwin in 1859, but evolutionary biology, as an academic discipline in its own right, emerged during the period of the modern synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s. It was not until the 1980s that many universities had departments of evolutionary biology.
Microbiology too is becoming an evolutionary discipline now that microbial physiology and genomics are better understood. The quick generation time of bacteria and viruses such as bacteriophages makes it possible to explore evolutionary questions.
Many biologists have contributed to shaping the modern discipline of evolutionary biology. Theodosius Dobzhansky and E. B. Ford established an empirical research programme. Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright, and J. B. S. Haldane created a sound theoretical framework. Ernst Mayr in systematics, George Gaylord Simpson in paleontology and G. Ledyard Stebbins in botany helped to form the modern synthesis. James Crow,Richard Lewontin,Dan Hartl,Marcus Feldman, and Brian Charlesworth trained a generation of evolutionary biologists.
Research topics
Research in evolutionary biology covers many topics and incorporates ideas from diverse areas, such as molecular genetics and mathematical and theoretical biology. Some fields of evolutionary research try to explain phenomena that were poorly accounted for in the modern evolutionary synthesis. These include speciation, the evolution of sexual reproduction, the evolution of cooperation, the evolution of ageing, and evolvability.
Some evolutionary biologists ask the most straightforward evolutionary question: "what happened and when?". This includes fields such as paleobiology, where paleobiologists and evolutionary biologists, including Thomas Halliday and Anjali Goswami, studied the evolution of early mammals going far back in time during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras (between 299 million to 12,000 years ago). Other fields related to generic exploration of evolution ("what happened and when?" ) include systematics and phylogenetics.
The modern evolutionary synthesis was devised at a time when the molecular basis of genes was unknown. Today, evolutionary biologists try to determine the genetic architecture underlying visible evolutionary phenomena such as adaptation and speciation. They seek answers to questions such as which genes are involved, how interdependent are the effects of different genes, what do the genes do, and what changes happen to them (e.g., point mutations vs. gene duplication or even genome duplication). They try to reconcile the high heritability seen in twin studies with the difficulty in finding which genes are responsible for this heritability using genome-wide association studies. The modern evolutionary synthesis involved agreement about which forces contribute to evolution, but not about their relative importance.
Journals
Some scientific journals specialise exclusively in evolutionary biology as a whole, including the journals Evolution, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, and BMC Evolutionary Biology. Some journals cover sub-specialties within evolutionary biology, such as the journals Systematic Biology, Molecular Biology and Evolution and its sister journal Genome Biology and Evolution, and Cladistics.
Other journals combine aspects of evolutionary biology with other related fields. For example, Molecular Ecology, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B, The American Naturalist and Theoretical Population Biology have overlap with ecology and other aspects of organismal biology. Overlap with ecology is also prominent in the review journals Trends in Ecology and Evolution and Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics. The journals Genetics and PLoS Genetics overlap with molecular genetics questions that are not obviously evolutionary in nature.
See also
- Comparative anatomy
- Computational phylogenetics
- Evolutionary computation
- Evolutionary dynamics
- Evolutionary neuroscience
- Evolutionary physiology
- On the Origin of Species
- Macroevolution
- Phylogenetic comparative methods
- Quantitative genetics
- Selective breeding
- Taxonomy (biology)
- Speculative evolution
References
- "Evolutionary engineering". Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences, Department of Applied Life Sciences, Lab. Extremophiles. Archived from the original on 16 December 2016.
- "What is an Evolutionary Algorithm?" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 August 2017.
- "What economists can learn from evolutionary theorists". Archived from the original on 30 July 2017.
- "Investigating architecture and design". IBM. 24 February 2009. Archived from the original on 18 August 2017.
- Introduction to Evolutionary Computing: A.E. Eiben. Natural Computing Series. Springer. 2003. ISBN 9783642072857. Archived from the original on 1 September 2017.
- Ozernyuk, N.D. (2019) "Evolutionary Developmental Biology: the Interaction of Developmental Biology, Evolutionary Biology, Paleontology, and Genomics". Paleontological Journal, Vol. 53, No. 11, pp. 1117–1133. ISSN 0031-0301.
- Gilbert, Scott F., Barresi, Michael J.F.(2016). "Developmental Biology" Sinauer Associates, inc.(11th ed.) pp. 785–810. ISBN 9781605354705.
- Smocovitis, Vassiliki Betty (1996). "Unifying Biology: The Evolutionary Synthesis and Evolutionary Biology". Journal of the History of Biology. 25 (1). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 1–65. doi:10.1007/BF01947504. ISBN 0-691-03343-9. PMID 11623198. S2CID 189833728.
- "The Academic Genealogy of Evolutionary Biology: James F. Crow". Archived from the original on 14 May 2012.
- "The Academic Genealogy of Evolutionary Biology:Richard Lewontin". Archived from the original on 14 May 2012.
- "The Academic Genealogy of Evolutionary Biology: Daniel Hartl". Archived from the original on 14 May 2012.
- "Feldman lab alumni & collaborators". Archived from the original on 7 March 2023.
- "The Academic Genealogy of Evolutionary Biology: Marcus Feldman". Archived from the original on 14 May 2012.
- "The Academic Genealogy of Evolutionary Biology: Brian Charlesworth". Archived from the original on 14 May 2012.
- Wiens, J.J. (2004). "What is speciation and how should we study it?". American Naturalist. 163 (6): 914–923. Bibcode:2004ANat..163..914W. doi:10.1086/386552. JSTOR 10.1086/386552. PMID 15266388. S2CID 15042207.
- Bernstein, H. et al. Sex and the emergence of species. J Theor Biol. 1985 Dec 21;117(4):665-90. doi: 10.1016/s0022-5193(85)80246-0. PMID 4094459.
- Otto SP (2009). "The evolutionary enigma of sex". American Naturalist. 174 (s1): S1 – S14. Bibcode:2009ANat..174S...1O. doi:10.1086/599084. PMID 19441962. S2CID 9250680.
- Bernstein, H. et al. Genetic damage, mutation, and the evolution of sex. Science. 1985 Sep 20;229(4719):1277-81. doi: 10.1126/science.3898363. PMID 3898363.
- Avise, J.C. Perspective: The evolutionary biology of aging, sexual reproduction, and DNA repair. Evolution. 1993 Oct;47(5):1293–1301. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.1993.tb02155.x. PMID 28564887.
- Hendrikse, Jesse Love; Parsons, Trish Elizabeth; Hallgrímsson, Benedikt (2007). "Evolvability as the proper focus of evolutionary developmental biology". Evolution & Development. 9 (4): 393–401. doi:10.1111/j.1525-142X.2007.00176.x. PMID 17651363. S2CID 31540737.
- Halliday, Thomas (29 June 2016). "Eutherians experienced elevated evolutionary rates in the immediate aftermath of the Cretaceous–Palaeogene mass extinction". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 283 (1833). doi:10.1098/rspb.2015.3026. PMC 4936024. PMID 27358361. S2CID 4920075.
- Halliday, Thomas (28 March 2016). "Eutherian morphological disparity across the end-Cretaceous mass extinction". Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 118 (1): 152–168. doi:10.1111/bij.12731.
- Manolio, T.A.; et al. (2009). "Finding the missing heritability of complex diseases". Nature. 461 (7265): 747–753. Bibcode:2009Natur.461..747M. doi:10.1038/nature08494. PMC 2831613. PMID 19812666.
- Provine, W.B. (1988). "Progress in evolution and meaning in life". Evolutionary progress. University of Chicago Press. pp. 49–79.
External links
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Media related to Evolutionary biology at Wikimedia Commons- Evolution and Paleobotany at the Encyclopædia Britannica
Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection common descent and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth In the 1930s the discipline of evolutionary biology emerged through what Julian Huxley called the modern synthesis of understanding from previously unrelated fields of biological research such as genetics and ecology systematics and paleontology Darwin s finches The investigational range of current research has widened to encompass the genetic architecture of adaptation molecular evolution and the different forces that contribute to evolution such as sexual selection genetic drift and biogeography The newer field of evolutionary developmental biology evo devo investigates how embryogenesis is controlled thus yielding a wider synthesis that integrates developmental biology with the fields of study covered by the earlier evolutionary synthesis SubfieldsEvolution is the central unifying concept in biology Biology can be divided into various ways One way is by the level of biological organization from molecular to cell organism to population Another way is by perceived taxonomic group with fields such as zoology botany and microbiology reflecting what was once seen as the major divisions of life A third way is by approaches such as field biology theoretical biology experimental evolution and paleontology These alternative ways of dividing up the subject have been combined with evolutionary biology to create subfields like evolutionary ecology and evolutionary developmental biology More recently the merge between biological science and applied sciences gave birth to new fields that are extensions of evolutionary biology including evolutionary robotics engineering algorithms economics and architecture 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 In evolutionary developmental biology scientists look at how the different processes in development play a role in how a specific organism reaches its current body plan The genetic regulation of ontogeny and the phylogenetic process is what allows for this kind of understanding of biology By looking at different processes during development and going through the evolutionary tree one can determine at which point a specific structure came about HistoryThe idea of evolution by natural selection was proposed by Charles Darwin in 1859 but evolutionary biology as an academic discipline in its own right emerged during the period of the modern synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s It was not until the 1980s that many universities had departments of evolutionary biology Microbiology too is becoming an evolutionary discipline now that microbial physiology and genomics are better understood The quick generation time of bacteria and viruses such as bacteriophages makes it possible to explore evolutionary questions Many biologists have contributed to shaping the modern discipline of evolutionary biology Theodosius Dobzhansky and E B Ford established an empirical research programme Ronald Fisher Sewall Wright and J B S Haldane created a sound theoretical framework Ernst Mayr in systematics George Gaylord Simpson in paleontology and G Ledyard Stebbins in botany helped to form the modern synthesis James Crow Richard Lewontin Dan Hartl Marcus Feldman and Brian Charlesworth trained a generation of evolutionary biologists Research topicsResearch in evolutionary biology covers many topics and incorporates ideas from diverse areas such as molecular genetics and mathematical and theoretical biology Some fields of evolutionary research try to explain phenomena that were poorly accounted for in the modern evolutionary synthesis These include speciation the evolution of sexual reproduction the evolution of cooperation the evolution of ageing and evolvability Some evolutionary biologists ask the most straightforward evolutionary question what happened and when This includes fields such as paleobiology where paleobiologists and evolutionary biologists including Thomas Halliday and Anjali Goswami studied the evolution of early mammals going far back in time during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras between 299 million to 12 000 years ago Other fields related to generic exploration of evolution what happened and when include systematics and phylogenetics The modern evolutionary synthesis was devised at a time when the molecular basis of genes was unknown Today evolutionary biologists try to determine the genetic architecture underlying visible evolutionary phenomena such as adaptation and speciation They seek answers to questions such as which genes are involved how interdependent are the effects of different genes what do the genes do and what changes happen to them e g point mutations vs gene duplication or even genome duplication They try to reconcile the high heritability seen in twin studies with the difficulty in finding which genes are responsible for this heritability using genome wide association studies The modern evolutionary synthesis involved agreement about which forces contribute to evolution but not about their relative importance JournalsSome scientific journals specialise exclusively in evolutionary biology as a whole including the journals Evolution Journal of Evolutionary Biology and BMC Evolutionary Biology Some journals cover sub specialties within evolutionary biology such as the journals Systematic Biology Molecular Biology and Evolution and its sister journal Genome Biology and Evolution and Cladistics Other journals combine aspects of evolutionary biology with other related fields For example Molecular Ecology Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B The American Naturalist and Theoretical Population Biology have overlap with ecology and other aspects of organismal biology Overlap with ecology is also prominent in the review journals Trends in Ecology and Evolution and Annual Review of Ecology Evolution and Systematics The journals Genetics and PLoS Genetics overlap with molecular genetics questions that are not obviously evolutionary in nature See alsoComparative anatomy Computational phylogenetics Evolutionary computation Evolutionary dynamics Evolutionary neuroscience Evolutionary physiology On the Origin of Species Macroevolution Phylogenetic comparative methods Quantitative genetics Selective breeding Taxonomy biology Speculative evolutionReferences Evolutionary engineering Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences Department of Applied Life Sciences Lab Extremophiles Archived from the original on 16 December 2016 What is an Evolutionary Algorithm PDF Archived PDF from the original on 9 August 2017 What economists can learn from evolutionary theorists Archived from the original on 30 July 2017 Investigating architecture and design IBM 24 February 2009 Archived from the original on 18 August 2017 Introduction to Evolutionary Computing A E Eiben Natural Computing Series Springer 2003 ISBN 9783642072857 Archived from the original on 1 September 2017 Ozernyuk N D 2019 Evolutionary Developmental Biology the Interaction of Developmental Biology Evolutionary Biology Paleontology and Genomics Paleontological Journal Vol 53 No 11 pp 1117 1133 ISSN 0031 0301 Gilbert Scott F Barresi Michael J F 2016 Developmental Biology Sinauer Associates inc 11th ed pp 785 810 ISBN 9781605354705 Smocovitis Vassiliki Betty 1996 Unifying Biology The Evolutionary Synthesis and Evolutionary Biology Journal of the History of Biology 25 1 Princeton NJ Princeton University Press 1 65 doi 10 1007 BF01947504 ISBN 0 691 03343 9 PMID 11623198 S2CID 189833728 The Academic Genealogy of Evolutionary Biology James F Crow Archived from the original on 14 May 2012 The Academic Genealogy of Evolutionary Biology Richard Lewontin Archived from the original on 14 May 2012 The Academic Genealogy of Evolutionary Biology Daniel Hartl Archived from the original on 14 May 2012 Feldman lab alumni amp collaborators Archived from the original on 7 March 2023 The Academic Genealogy of Evolutionary Biology Marcus Feldman Archived from the original on 14 May 2012 The Academic Genealogy of Evolutionary Biology Brian Charlesworth Archived from the original on 14 May 2012 Wiens J J 2004 What is speciation and how should we study it American Naturalist 163 6 914 923 Bibcode 2004ANat 163 914W doi 10 1086 386552 JSTOR 10 1086 386552 PMID 15266388 S2CID 15042207 Bernstein H et al Sex and the emergence of species J Theor Biol 1985 Dec 21 117 4 665 90 doi 10 1016 s0022 5193 85 80246 0 PMID 4094459 Otto SP 2009 The evolutionary enigma of sex American Naturalist 174 s1 S1 S14 Bibcode 2009ANat 174S 1O doi 10 1086 599084 PMID 19441962 S2CID 9250680 Bernstein H et al Genetic damage mutation and the evolution of sex Science 1985 Sep 20 229 4719 1277 81 doi 10 1126 science 3898363 PMID 3898363 Avise J C Perspective The evolutionary biology of aging sexual reproduction and DNA repair Evolution 1993 Oct 47 5 1293 1301 doi 10 1111 j 1558 5646 1993 tb02155 x PMID 28564887 Hendrikse Jesse Love Parsons Trish Elizabeth Hallgrimsson Benedikt 2007 Evolvability as the proper focus of evolutionary developmental biology Evolution amp Development 9 4 393 401 doi 10 1111 j 1525 142X 2007 00176 x PMID 17651363 S2CID 31540737 Halliday Thomas 29 June 2016 Eutherians experienced elevated evolutionary rates in the immediate aftermath of the Cretaceous Palaeogene mass extinction Proceedings of the Royal Society B 283 1833 doi 10 1098 rspb 2015 3026 PMC 4936024 PMID 27358361 S2CID 4920075 Halliday Thomas 28 March 2016 Eutherian morphological disparity across the end Cretaceous mass extinction Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 118 1 152 168 doi 10 1111 bij 12731 Manolio T A et al 2009 Finding the missing heritability of complex diseases Nature 461 7265 747 753 Bibcode 2009Natur 461 747M doi 10 1038 nature08494 PMC 2831613 PMID 19812666 Provine W B 1988 Progress in evolution and meaning in life Evolutionary progress University of Chicago Press pp 49 79 External linksMedia related to Evolutionary biology at Wikimedia Commons Evolution and Paleobotany at the Encyclopaedia Britannica Portals BiologyEvolutionary biology
