Evolution Defined
- Species do not stay the same over time; the species that we see around us today have developed over millions of years
- This process of species change is known as evolution
- Evolution can be defined as:
- Changes in the heritable characteristics of organisms over generations
- Heritable characteristics are those that can be inherited by, or passed on to, the next generation
- Changes in characteristics that are not inherited, e.g. a plant having its leaves eaten, do not lead to evolution
- Heritable characteristics are determined by the alleles of genes that are present in an individual
- Alleles may change as a result of random mutation, causing them to become more or less advantageous
- Heritable characteristics that are advantageous are more likely to be passed on to offspring, leading to a gradual change in a species over time
- This is the process of natural selection
- Changes in the heritable characteristics of organisms can also lead to the development of completely new species
- The formation of new species via the process of evolution has resulted in a great diversity of species on Earth
- Theoretically, at the origin of life on Earth, there would have been just one single species
- This species evolved into separate new species
- These species would then have divided again, each forming new species once again
- Over millions of years, evolution has led to countless numbers of these speciation events, resulting in the millions of species now present on Earth
Evolutionary change over a long period of time has resulted in a great diversity of species