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Evolutionary Ecologists
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. The process of evolution has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation. The scientific theory of evolution by natural selection was conceived independently by two British naturalists, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, in the mid-19th century as an explanation for why organisms are adapted to their physical and biological environments. The theory was first set out in detail in Darwin's book ''On the Origin of Species''. Evolution by natural selection is established by observable facts about living organisms: (1) more offspring are often produced than can possibly survive; (2) traits vary among individuals with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heritable
Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of Phenotypic trait, traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cell (biology), cells or organisms acquire the genetic information of their parents. Through heredity, variations between individuals can accumulate and cause species to evolution, evolve by natural selection. The study of heredity in biology is genetics. Overview In humans, eye color is an example of an inherited characteristic: an individual might inherit the "brown-eye trait" from one of the parents. Inherited traits are controlled by genes and the complete set of genes within an organism's genome is called its genotype. The complete set of observable traits of the structure and behavior of an organism is called its phenotype. These traits arise from the interaction of the organism's genotype with the Environment (biophysical), environment. As a result, many as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Annual Review Of Ecology And Systematics
The ''Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics'' is an annual scientific journal published by Annual Reviews. The journal was established in 1970 as the ''Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics'' and changed its name beginning in 2003. It publishes invited review articles on topics considered to be timely and important in the fields of ecology, evolutionary biology, and systematics. ''Journal Citation Reports'' gave the journal a 2023 impact factor of 11.2, ranking it third of 195 journals in the "Ecology" category and third of 54 journals in "Evolutionary Biology". it is being published as open access, under the Subscribe to Open model. History The ''Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics'' was first published in 1970, with Richard F. Johnston as its first editor. In 1975 it began publishing biographies of notable ecologists in the prefatory chapter. In 2003, its name was changed to its current form, the ''Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systemati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved in amber, hair, petrified wood and DNA remnants. The totality of fossils is known as the ''fossil record''. Though the fossil record is incomplete, numerous studies have demonstrated that there is enough information available to give a good understanding of the pattern of diversification of life on Earth. In addition, the record can predict and fill gaps such as the discovery of '' Tiktaalik'' in the arctic of Canada. Paleontology includes the study of fossils: their age, method of formation, and evolutionary significance. Specimens are sometimes considered to be fossils if they are over 10,000 years old. The oldest fossils are around 3.48 billion years to 4.1 billion years old. Early edition, published online before prin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biology Direct
''Biology Direct'' is an online open access scientific journal that publishes original, peer-reviewed research papers, reviews, hypotheses, comments and discovery notes in biology. The journal is published by BioMed Central. The journal follows a peer review system which is different from the traditional peer review system, which aims to give more responsibility to authors, and reduce sources of bias. Published articles include signed reviewer reports, and responses to the reports from the authors, to provide readers with an additional guide to the article. Purpose Based on the information presented on their website: "Biology Direct's key aim is to provide authors and readers with an alternative to the traditional model of peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Prize-winners being featured since its inception. In print since 1845, it is the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. ''Scientific American'' is owned by Springer Nature, which is a subsidiary of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. History ''Scientific American'' was founded by inventor and publisher Rufus Porter (painter), Rufus Porter in 1845 as a four-page weekly newspaper. The first issue of the large-format New York City newspaper was released on August 28, 1845. Throughout its early years, much emphasis was placed on reports of what was going on at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, U.S. Patent Office. It also reported on a broad range of inventions including perpetual motion machines, an 1860 devi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Last Universal Common Ancestor
The last universal common ancestor (LUCA) is the hypothesized common ancestral cell from which the three domains of life, the Bacteria, the Archaea, and the Eukarya originated. The cell had a lipid bilayer; it possessed the genetic code and ribosomes which translated from DNA or RNA to proteins. Although the timing of the LUCA is not able to be definitively constrained, most studies suggest that the LUCA existed by or prior to 3.5 billion years ago, and possibly as early as 4.3 billion years ago or earlier. The nature of this point or stage of divergence remains a topic of research. All earlier forms of life preceding this divergence and all extant organisms are generally thought to share common ancestry. On the basis of a formal statistical test, this theory of a universal common ancestry (UCA) is supported versus competing multiple-ancestry hypotheses. The first universal common ancestor (FUCA) is a hypothetical non-cellular ancestor to LUCA and other now-extinct s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Evolution
''Homo sapiens'' is a distinct species of the hominid family of primates, which also includes all the great apes. Over their evolutionary history, humans gradually developed traits such as Human skeletal changes due to bipedalism, bipedalism, dexterity, and complex language, as well as interbreeding with other hominins (a tribe of the Homininae, African hominid subfamily), indicating that human evolution was not linear but weblike. The study of the origins of humans involves Interdisciplinary, several scientific disciplines, including Biological anthropology, physical and evolutionary anthropology, paleontology, and genetics; the field is also known by the terms anthropogeny, anthropogenesis, and anthropogony—with the latter two sometimes used to refer to the related subject of hominization. Primate evolution, Primates diverged from other mammals about (Myr, mya), in the Late Cretaceous period, with their earliest fossils appearing over 55 mya, during the Paleocene. Prima ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Flow
In population genetics, gene flow (also known as migration and allele flow) is the transfer of genetic variation, genetic material from one population to another. If the rate of gene flow is high enough, then two populations will have equivalent allele frequencies and therefore can be considered a single effective population. It has been shown that it takes only "one migrant per generation" to prevent populations from diverging due to Genetic drift, drift. Populations can diverge due to Natural selection, selection even when they are exchanging alleles, if the selection pressure is strong enough. Gene flow is an important mechanism for transferring genetic diversity among populations. Migrants change the distribution of genetic diversity among populations, by modifying allele frequencies (the proportion of members carrying a particular variant of a gene). High rates of gene flow can reduce the genetic differentiation between the two groups, increasing homogeneity. Gene flow has b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mutation
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, mitosis, or meiosis or other types of damage to DNA (such as pyrimidine dimers caused by exposure to ultraviolet radiation), which then may undergo error-prone repair (especially microhomology-mediated end joining), cause an error during other forms of repair, or cause an error during replication ( translesion synthesis). Mutations may also result from substitution, insertion or deletion of segments of DNA due to mobile genetic elements. Mutations may or may not produce detectable changes in the observable characteristics ( phenotype) of an organism. Mutations play a part in both normal and abnormal biological processes including: evolution, cancer, and the development of the immune system, including junctional diversity. Mutati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
