Gosh, it's everywhere. /sarc
From this,
To this
Posted on 02/22/2006 10:38:24 PM PST by quantim
Don't look now, but your backyard is evolving. It's no joke. There's a growing body of evidence that evolution is no longer something only seen either in this year's flu virus or Cretaceous tyrannosaur bones. It's happening everywhere, right now, and charging full-steam ahead.
Research on toads, frogs, salamanders, fish, lizards, squirrels and plants are all showing evidence that some species are attempting to adapt to new conditions in a time frame of decades, not eons, say biologists.
What's more, one of the biggest reasons for all this evolution right now may be that human-induced changes to climate and landscapes give species few other options.
Move, Adapt or Die
"Basically, a species can do three things," said the University of Sydney's Richard Shine: "go extinct, move or adapt."
The first two have kept conservation biologists working day and night, to the exclusion of the third, he said. But that's changing as real-time evolution is hitting the news wires and getting more attention.
The highest-profile case yet was made public by Shine and his colleagues in the Feb. 16 issue of Nature: the case of toxic cane toads at the forefront of a seven-decade Australian invasion. Measurements over the years prove that the leading toads have evolved significantly longer legs.
It appears that hopping further and faster rewards long-legged toads with the first crack at lush virgin territory, and therefore more offspring to perpetuate their athleticism.
Behind that story are even more cases of rapid evolution, says Shine, an evolutionary ecologist. Already he's seeing changes in native Australian snakes. First they tried to eat the toads, and died. Now, Shine says, the surviving snakes have modified jaws which make them unable to eat the toads and therefore safe from their toxin.
"Invasive species are a nice model," Shine said.
They hint at the rates of evolution that might be expected as species feel the increasing pressure of global warming. They also draw the attention of conservation biologists, who are often on the front lines of battles to save habitats and individual species.
"In the past 20 years, essentially all evolutionary biologists have come to widely recognize the importance and prevalence of (what's) often called 'rapid evolution,'" wrote evolutionary biologist Andrew Hendry of McGill University, who responded to questions via email from the Galapagos Islands. "Many conservation biologists have recently come to the same realization and I expect that the rest will soon follow."
Rapid evolution is good news for conservation biologists. It implies that the number of species that might go extinct will be less than some current estimates, which predict as many as one-third of all species alive today will be wiped out by 2050.
The first known case of a mammal responding genetically to warmer climate warming is the red squirrel of the Yukon Territory.
Canadian scientists have discovered that red squirrels are giving birth about 18 days earlier than their great-grandmothers. It's the early squirrel that gets the nut, after all: natural selection in action.
In the last 24 hours I've seen about 6-7 program re-broadcasts on the History and Discovery channels about ice ages, dinosaurs, volcanoes, etc. and the amount of species that has come and gone is beyond comprehension.
My favorite part was a segment where some scientists speculated that global warming leads to ice ages...lol.
Gosh, it's everywhere. /sarc
From this,
To this
Two bogus notions in the same statement.
OK, I'm going outside right now to observe all that evolution going on.
Unless it's of the rectal variety.
Don't look behind you...the toads are gaining on us.
When a toad becomes something other than a toad, get back to me.
65% of Freepers believe in evolution. Well, that settles it!
No specie or individual breeds true.
High variability in [a specie or individual's] progeny may or not have survival value, depending on how fast the rest of the environment is changing. Changes in the rate of evolution are part of evolution itself.
This article says, rightly, that the environment of many species is changing, and that human activity is a significant cause. (No opinion is needed that global warming exists and/or is a man-caused phenomenon, or that it is *the* major stressor on evolving life.)
For one, I need no scientific proof that my daughter and my niece read faster, better, and are more skilled in mathematics at earlier ages than myself and my brothers, and I certainly can see that each generation of athelete is bigger, better, faster, etc..... at what rate, I have no clue, but it is a FACT.
DLR...have you caught the "Little Ice Age" program on History Chanel? I wondered what your thoughts are about the the 5 Century long "Little Ice Age", the year without a summer(1816), and the idea that the Earth is now in a warming cycle caused by ocean currents and other factors, thus giving us a foundation to continue research into global warming and the causes. rather than the political mumbo jumbo that dominates the news etc?
Gotta ask. Are your posts sarcasm? I hope so, because I am not an evolutionist.
Ah, somebody else with common sense.
Saw again, outstanding.
I went back to the original discussion, and that is the conclusion I arrived at.
...Which conclusion would that be?
"Little Ice Age" certainly makes more sense than I have been able to make out of any of the "political" commentary, the idea being global warming/cooling is cyclical in nature, and that there is much proof for the event in historical records. Very good program.
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