Because of the damage to the environment: man causes the acceleration of evolution

The changes that humans impose on the environment accelerate evolution in many ecosystems. The sharp knives of natural selection still work today

Australian cane toad, from Wikipedia
Australian cane toad, from Wikipedia
A cane toad bangs on my hotel door at night. I hear the banging as she misjudges where the door ends and the forest outside begins. The toad was planted in the tree with considerable force. But the force with which these toads, native to Central America, exerted themselves on Australia was even stronger. They were brought to Queensland in 1935 to fight the beetles that raided the sugar cane fields, and spread from where they arrived like the shock wave of a bomb. The webbed feet and the too-long tongues appeared in every possible ecological crevice.

A recent study by Ben Phillips and his colleagues at the University of Sydney revealed that toads go through an evolutionary process as they spread. They perfect their ability to adapt to the Australian landscape. The toads at the forefront of today's spread are smaller, less poisonous and have longer legs. Apparently, individuals with these traits were more successful. The Australian fauna also reacted accordingly: some species of snakes today have smaller mouths, for example, because snakes with large mouths ate the poisonous cane toads and died.

Evolution in action

These examples change the minds of scientists about the rate of evolution. For a long time it was believed that the process was slow and even clumsy. But researchers are increasingly observing evolution in action. You may have heard of examples of rapid evolution of drug-resistant bacteria or agricultural pests. Although bacteria and pests change at the fastest rate, they are not unique.

We usually see rapid evolution when some force (often us humans) triggers it through a sudden and sharp change in the organism's living environment. Rats developed a smaller body when they reached the islands. Edible fish have also adapted by using a smaller body in response to fishermen preferring large fish (which of course do not reproduce after they die). Above the streams where salmon were released, insects began to fly at night in search of food to escape the predatory fish from the swimming shots.

Many herbivores moved to new, often toxic, food sources brought by humans and learned to specialize in the consumption of these new resources. Different native species have undergone evolutionary change in response to new competitors that have recently arrived. Cedar trees began to produce toxic substances to protect themselves from the teeth of the deer that today roam in habitats that were once harmless. Edible oysters in New England have evolved the ability to recognize invasive green crabs and produce thicker shells where they have been.

Most of these changes seem to be due to natural selection: the individuals who happened to be endowed with a certain genetic trait that helped them thrive in the face of the new threat were favored. This allowed them to breed successfully and pass the beneficial trait on to future generations. But some evolutionary changes we see are simply the result of genetic drift (random genetic changes that accumulate over time).

A new species in an instant

The more we look, the more we find cases where changes can be observed fast enough to be tracked over the course of a single study. During the approximately five years in which a doctoral student completes his research, he can tangibly see the development of a new species, either in real time or using genetic tools to reconstruct evolutionary history.

As house mice and rats spread along with humans around the world, they split into strains best adapted to the different habitats they reached. In the northeastern United States, a new species of butterfly has developed that feeds on a species of honeysuckle plant that was brought to North America less than 250 years ago. Although it is a hybrid between two existing species, the new butterfly is unable to produce offspring with either of them, and it keeps Therefore, on a fertile population of its own.

People tend to think that evolution only works on long extinct creatures, like the dinosaurs. But the sharp knives of natural selection and the random pushes and pulls of genetic drift are still at work today. We see an oak tree in the yard of our house or a cane toad in the room, but don't let these names confuse us, the species change from year to year. Although the evolution we see in real time will not suddenly create dinosaurs, it is still a force to be reckoned with. Give natural selection a few individuals of a certain species and it will act in a sewage pond in exactly the same way as in Yellowstone National Park. Nature hates a vacuum, but it will get along with almost anything else.

Author: Rob Dunn, ecologist in the Department of Zoology at the University of North Carolina. He studies the evolutionary relationships between animals and plants and the response of species to climate change. Originally published in Scientific American Israel magazine

Comments

  1. Download software:
    Does this prove that 1+1=2?
    No.
    There are many other things that this does not prove and are nevertheless true.
    In general, in science there is no proof, only confirmations.
    The theory of evolution has received thousands of confirmations.
    Alternative theories, however, have received thousands of refutations.

  2. Does this prove anything about man being able to evolve from inanimate? No, it only proves something circumstantial and small.

  3. In view of the fact that many of the visitors to this site suffer from a lack of faith and have heretical reflections (mercifully for them!) regarding the existence of God (the one and only!), I found it appropriate to publish here the winning proof of his existence, and all the detractors and infidels will hereby be forced to swallow their hat!
    Proof of the existence of God:
    And let's start with a parable:
    Once upon a time there was a tribe that lived in the thick of the forest and made a living by felling trees, sawing the tree trunks into boards and selling them to the highest bidder. One day a huge, strange-looking machine appeared at the site where the tribesmen used to saw the trunks into boards. After several attempts, the tribesmen discovered that the machine performs the difficult work of sawing the trunks into boards completely automatically: the tribesmen placed the trunks on one side (where there was a lighted arrow flashing towards the inside of the machine), and behold, it was a miracle, on the other side, sawn wooden boards emerged! what a relief!
    From that day on, the members of the tribe did not bother themselves with the difficult work of sawing the tree trunks and did not even bother thinking about it: they placed the trunks on one side of the machine and received sawn boards on the other side (which is, by the way, at a considerable distance from the first end). Tens, hundreds and maybe even thousands of years have passed. The people continued to place the trunks at one end of the machine and were rewarded with their sawn output at the other end.
    One day the machine disappeared. There was no trace of her existence. Cities, streets, houses and industrial areas were built on the site where it was stationed. However, the people continued, out of habit, to place the trunks as before in the old site on one side of the machine. And behold, it was a miracle, the sawn boards continued to appear as they were on the other side. The conclusion of the people of the tribe (which in the meantime grew, expanded, multiplied and became a huge and numerous tribe...) was that the machine still exists: fact! Trunks are placed on one side and sawn boards appear on the other side.

    So much for the example. And the parable:
    In ancient times there was no law and no law. Very wise people thought and came to the conclusion that since their power to rule order, law and protection of the weak failed, they must enlist their help in a higher being who would rule order through the power of fear that people would feel towards her, hence their message (Bat Kol...) Accept with Ada: He who will not listen to the voice of God, his blood in his head And they added and invented heaven, hell, Job and another priestess and priestess from Rein Bishin. The people who understood that it was the talk of wise men, and faith was their way of life, began to observe mitzvahs, constitutions and instructions of every law. And the land will be quiet not 40, not 400 but 2,000 years. And since it continues to fulfill its role, the machine, even if you don't see it - exists!

    And what is said about us, who live in a modern era where the need for higher powers to maintain order and law has disappeared? there is a God! (Like the chant that came out of the throats of 20,000 people in the Teddy Stadium not long ago - and a billion Chinese are not wrong...), the fact is, he fulfills his role and therefore, even if you don't see him - he is alive, exists and kicks! (Islands!!)

  4. Thank you Yehuda, tap tap without the evil eye (or in Yiddish kain ein hore). Do you have to believe in the evil eye to say such a sentence?

  5. For the hell of it, stop that Einstein believed in God!.
    It is impossible to conclude from his words: "God does not play with dice" that he believes in God, just as it is impossible to conclude from a person who says: "To all the spirits" that he believes in demons and spirits.
    Good Morning
    Sabdarmish Yehuda

  6. To the civil engineer?
    I did not understand your response to Rachel. After all, what Rachel said is that man is also a product of evolution, not that he created himself. There are enough deniers of evolution in the world, but they will not change reality any more than the deniers of the fact that the earth revolves around the sun who were strong enough (the church believed in it) could not change the course with all their faith.

    And for the million and one time - Einstein did not believe in God. Stop this brainwashing.

  7. Rachel

    Did man create himself?

    You said: "Every sane person knows that man invented God, and man, like all living creatures on earth, is a product of evolution"

    Is Einstein sane?
    And if so, know that he believed in God...
    It was found that what you wrote above is not true...

  8. Is it necessarily bad?
    According to the theory of evolution, it causes a lot of development.
    By the way, people think that man is the pinnacle of evolution, but this is absolutely not true.
    All in all, every creature occupies an avocilian niche and man occupies only a certain niche

  9. Hello dear friends, it's not God it's us. After all, every sane person knows that man invented God, and man, like all living creatures on earth, is a product of evolution. The use of radioactive elements (eg nuclear submarines that sink in the sea and all kinds of remnants of nuclear waste that cannot be recycled increases the radioactive radiation which increases the ionizing radiation and this inevitably increases without any divine supervision the likelihood of mutations in the genetic material - DNA) to Griffis' knowledge this is what causes Lots of fish disappear and get strange diseases of their immune system.
    At the time, Isaac Asimov wrote about it in the combined series of the robots and the Mossad. (you should read the trilogy again) guys unfortunately as long as we don't have another planet to go to let's not destroy the one we have…..
    It is desirable that we concentrate on how to restore the earth and develop something in combination with other nations that will save the world and the other guys who inhabit it because the diplomatic problems between homo sapiens really should not harm the other living creatures and plants that inhabit the earth.

  10. If I present to you the possibility that God is a human/alien according to the laws of physics, will you stop believing in him?
    post Scriptum
    I don't believe in aliens but I don't deny the possibility of their existence

  11. Maybe an intelligent creator does not condone the development of the universe? possible?!
    In conversations like this it always seems to me that people believe that if they find God then maybe all other laws of reality disappear immediately. Maybe there is something beyond evolution, which seems like a very logical theory by the way, just maybe not all the answers will be found outside of you.
    We may be more developed organisms than frogs, but more evolutionary pressure is exerted on us, so you can see rapid change..

  12. Avi and Roy:
    It turns out that it is difficult to convince ermac h that there is no intelligent creator, but it is very easy to convince ermac h that there is no intelligent creator.
    By the way, since he demands videos from us - maybe he has a video of God or another intelligent creator? It's not possible that he discriminates against our claims, right?

  13. Carbon dating is extrapolation. But what does it actually prove? The age of the world? Let it be. It certainly does not contradict an intelligent creator. Nor does the Bible by the way. My existence is not a hypothesis since I can be watched in an external video. However, the age of the universe is still One did not measure or take a picture.

  14. ermac h. It's very easy to cut and paste and ignore the comments about the previous times you said it. A waste of our time. Just a small comment regarding section 6, about the same chance as the carbon 14 dating being incorrect, your very existence is also a hypothesis.

  15. Here is the "evidence" for evolution and why it is not evidence but only extrapolations - 1 - Embryology - Why do we see leg buds in a dolphin? Or gill folds in an embryo? Answer - not everything that looks like legs is indeed such, and recently they discovered that the "gills" of the embryo They are nothing more than folds of skin. So are imaginary leg buds and more.
    2- Genetic homology - why is there homologous similarity between certain creatures? Answer - homologous similarity does not indicate a common origin, any more than a common creator. And so also in connection with a common genetic code. Not to mention that this does not prove the splitting of one species into another.
    3-Fossils-why are there series of fossils from the simple to the complex? Answer-a logical tree does not indicate development from one another, just like if we find Pentium processors in high layers and (old) 486 processors in low layers, surely it should not be claimed that they evolved from each other. In the absence of confirmation of A species that transforms into another species, this is not evidence at all, but wishful thinking (and this includes the ability to mutate). In fact, a species that transforms into a new species has never been predicted (even all breeds of dogs are still identified as dogs). This makes all the fossil series a pure hypothesis. In the Holy Scriptures it is recorded that the Creator was building and destroying worlds, meaning before ours.
    4-Why are bacteria resistant to antibiotics?-Answer-The rate of multiplication of bacteria is enormous, under such a condition...the number of mutations is enormous.
    The antibiotic wears on a specific part of the bacteria, as soon as this part changes even a little, the antibiotic will stop working, and in fact, a mutation is enough
    A single one to overcome the antibiotics. A mutation whose probability is almost certain sooner or later, if only because of the rate of multiplication of bacteria. This has nothing to do with evolution, which claims that a bacterium will slowly change into a completely new creature with new multi-gene systems.
    5-Why are there "degenerate" organs?-Answer-The role of these organs is still unknown, in the past they thought that the tonsils had no role, today they think otherwise. In the past they thought that "junk" DNA had no role, today they think differently. Today it is assumed otherwise (by the way, the coccyx is also necessary for the skeleton). Not everything whose function we do not know is indeed without a function. And it is possible that in the future their true function will be discovered.
    6-Carbon dating and other dating methods-actually, this is a hypothesis. And there is a certain range for the dated age. Not to mention deviations that have been found. What's more, this does not contradict the age of the world, since it is written in the Holy Scriptures that there were worlds before ours.
    There are some other apparent evidences, but they are only apparent.

  16. Oh, I haven't grown a third hand!!!!!
    It must be so that I can write faster on the computer.
    The truth is that this is indeed a special thing that indicates that the world is an amazing thing that knows how to mold itself into dangerous and strange turtles, you just have to keep the world from happening that suddenly this wonderful creation will come to an end

Leave a Reply

Email will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismat to prevent spam messages. Click here to learn how your response data is processed.