Hi everyone,
Here is an article about evolution in fruit flies.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/03/evolution-can-occur-really-really-rapidly/#:~:text=When%20we%20think%20of%20evolution,in%20response%20to%20seasonal%20changes.
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When we think of evolution, we often think of slow, gradual changes made over millions of years. However, new research suggests that the process could be happening quite quickly, driving major changes over the course of a single year in response to seasonal changes.
Over the four months, the researchers saw changes in the frequency of some variants across 60 percent of the flies' genomes. That's a particularly large change that Rudman called a "staggering number." Only a small fraction of this represents variants that were selected for by the changing conditions as summer shifted to fall, however. As those variants were selected for, they pulled along nearby areas of the chromosome, altering the frequency of neighboring variants as well.
The researchers could tell the changes were adaptive rather than just genetic drift. They could tell because the changes appeared in the populations of most enclosures rather than just one or two.
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Cheers.
Sriram
Yup - evolution can work really, really quick. It depends on:
A) How quick the lifecycle of the organism is
B) How major the environmental challenge is and
C) How beneficial the particular genetic trait is.
So scientist do this kind of stuff all the time as a standard method in biology - often with bacteria and antibiotic resistance.
So it works like this - you want to grow up genetic material which you will use in mammalian cells. You incorporate the genetic material into bacteria, but alongside it you add an antibiotic resistance. To start with a tiny proportion of the bacteria successfully take up the genetic material (and the antibiotic resistance) - so a few have the 'mutation' so to speak. Challenge them with an antibiotic and all the bacteria without the resistance die - you are left in a day or two with an entire population of bacteria with the 'mutation'.
So you are correct - evolution can be very quick where the lifecycle of the organism is short and a mutation conveys overwhelming advantage in response to a very major environmental challenge.
