Big Ideas Simply Explained - The Ecology Book

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РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS FOREWORD BY TONY JUNIPER

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS DK US/LONDON ASSISTANT ART EDITORS Fiona Plowman, Dorothy Stannard, Shreya Singal, Vidushi Gupta, Amrai Dua Rachel Warren Chadd SENIOR EDITORS ASSISTANT EDITOR Helen Fewster, Camilla Hallinan SENIOR EDITOR Isobel Rodel Janashree Singha INDEXER SENIOR ART EDITOR Marie Lorimer Duncan Turner EDITOR PROOFREADER Aadithyan Mohan K. Richard Beatty AMERICANIZER ASSISTANT EDITORS ADDITIONAL TEXT Jill Hamilton Rishi Bryan, Tanya Singhal, Nonita Saha JACKET DESIGNER Shannon Webber, Marcus Weeks ILLUSTRATIONS original styling by James Graham Suhita Dharamjit JACKET EDITOR SENIOR DTP DESIGNERS STUDIO 8 Emma Dawson Harish Aggarwal, Jagtar Singh JACKET DESIGNER First American Edition, 2019 Surabhi Wadhwa-Gandhi DTP DESIGNERS Published in the United States by JACKET DESIGN Mohammad Rizwan, Bimlesh Tiwary DK Publishing, 1450 Broadway, 8th Floor, DEVELOPMENT MANAGER PICTURE RESEARCHER New York, New York 10018 Sophia MTT Vishal Ghavri Copyright © 2019 Dorling Kindersley Limited PRODUCER, PRE-PRODUCTION DK, a division of Penguin Random House LLC JACKETS EDITORIAL COORDINATOR Andy Hilliard Priyanka Sharma Foreword © 2019 Tony Juniper SENIOR PRODUCER 19 20 21 22 23 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Meskerem Berhane MANAGING JACKETS EDITOR MANAGING EDITOR Saloni Singh 001–311040–Apr/2019 Angeles Gavira Guerrero All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under the MANAGING ART EDITOR PICTURE RESEARCH MANAGER copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may Taiyaba Khatoon Michael Duffy be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval ASSOCIATE PUBLISHING DIRECTOR PRE-PRODUCTION MANAGER system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means Balwant Singh (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or Liz Wheeler otherwise), without the prior written permission of the ART DIRECTOR PRODUCTION MANAGER Pankaj Sharma copyright owner. Published in Great Britain Karen Self by Dorling Kindersley Limited DESIGN DIRECTOR MANAGING EDITOR Soma B. Chowdhury A catalog record for this book is available from Philip Ormerod SENIOR MANAGING ART EDITOR the Library of Congress. PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Arunesh Talapatra ISBN 978-1-4654-7958-7 Jonathan Metcalf TOUCAN BOOKS DK books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk for sales promotions, premiums, DK DELHI EDITORIAL DIRECTOR fund-raising, or educational use. For details, contact: Ellen Dupont DK Publishing Special Markets, 1450 Broadway, 8th Floor, SENIOR ART EDITOR New York, New York 10018 or [email protected] Ira Sharma SENIOR DESIGNER Thomas Keenes Printed and bound in Malaysia PROJECT ART EDITOR SENIOR EDITOR Vikas Sachdeva Scarlett O’Hara A WORLD OF IDEAS: ART EDITORS EDITORS SEE ALL THERE IS TO KNOW Shipra Jain, Sourabh Challariya, John Andrews, Alethea Doran, Sue George, www.dk.com Debjyoti Mukherjee Guy Croton, Cathy Meeus, Abigail Mitchell,

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS CONTRIBUTORS JULIA SCHROEDER, CONSULTANT DEREK HARVEY Julia Schroeder received her Ph.D. in Animal Ecology from the A naturalist and teacher with a particular interest in evolutionary University of Groningen in the Netherlands. From 2012 to 2017, biology, Derek Harvey graduated in Zoology from Liverpool University she headed a research group at the Max Planck Institute for in the UK. He has taught a generation of biologists and led student Ornithology in Germany, studying social behavioral ecology. Julia expeditions to Costa Rica, Madagascar, and Australasia. Derek now currently researches and teaches evolutionary biology at Imperial concentrates on writing and consulting for science and natural College London. history books. CELIA COYNE TOM JACKSON Celia Coyne is a freelance writer and editor living in Christchurch, A writer for 25 years, Tom Jackson is the author of about 200 nonfiction New Zealand. She is the author of Earth’s Riches and The Power of books for adults and children and has contributed to many more. Tom Plants and writes and edits articles on science and natural history studied zoology at Bristol University, UK, and worked in zoos and as a for magazines, newspapers, journals, websites, and books in the UK, conservationist before turning to writing about natural history and all Australia, and New Zealand. Her aim is to make scientific subjects things scientific. accessible to lay readers. ALISON SINGER JOHN FARNDON Alison Singer is a Ph.D. candidate in Community Sustainability at The author of hundreds of books on science and nature for both Michigan State University, US, where she studies storytelling and children and adults, John Farndon studied geography at Cambridge science communication. She has a broad educational background in University. He has written extensively on earth sciences and the writing, ecology, and the social sciences. Alison has worked as an environment, focusing in particular on conservation and ecology. educator for environmental charities, and for the US Environmental His books include The Oceans Atlas, The Wildlife Atlas, How the Earth Protection Agency. Works, and The Practical Encyclopedia of Rocks and Minerals. TIM HARRIS After studying Norwegian glaciers in college, Tim Harris traveled the world in search of unusual wildlife and extraordinary landscapes. He has explored the dunes of the Namib Desert, climbed Popocatépetl in central Mexico, camped in the Sumatran rain forest, and searched the frozen Sea of Okhotsk in Russia. He is a former Deputy Editor of Birdwatch magazine in the UK and has written books about nature for adults and children.

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS CONTENTS 12 INTRODUCTION 34 We’ve discovered 66 The fitness of a foraging the secret of life animal depends on THE STORY The role of DNA its efficiency OF EVOLUTION Optimal foraging theory 38 Genes are selfish 20 Time is insignificant molecules 68 Parasites and pathogens and never a difficulty The selfish gene control populations for nature like predators Early theories of evolution ECOLOGICAL Ecological epidemiology PROCESSES 22 A world previous to ours, 72 Why don’t penguins’ destroyed by catastrophe 44 Lessons from feet freeze? Extinction and change mathematical theory Ecophysiology on the struggle 23 No vestige of a beginning for life 74 All life is chemical —no prospect of an end Predator–prey equations Ecological stoichiometry Uniformitarianism 76 Fear itself is powerful 24 The struggle for existence 50 Existence is determined Nonconsumptive effects Evolution by natural selection by a slender thread of predators on their prey of circumstances 32 Human beings are Ecological niches ORDERING THE ultimately nothing NATURAL WORLD but carriers for genes 52 Complete competitors The rules of heredity cannot coexist 82 In all things of nature Competitive exclusion there is something of principle the marvelous Classification of living things 54 Poor field experiments can be worse than useless Field experiments 56 More nectar means more ants and more ants mean more nectar Mutualisms 60 Whelks are like little wolves in slow motion Keystone species

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 84 By the help of 138 Life is supported by a vast microscopes nothing network of processes escapes our inquiry Energy flow through The microbiological ecosystems environment 140 The world is green 86 If you do not know Trophic cascades the names of things, the knowledge of them is lost 144 Islands are ecological A system for identifying all systems nature’s organisms Island biogeography 88 “Reproductively isolated” 114 Birds lay the number 150 It is the constancy of are the key words of eggs that produce numbers that matters Biological species concept the optimum number Ecological resilience of offspring 90 Organisms clearly Clutch control 152 Populations are subjected cluster into several to unpredictable forces primary kingdoms 116 The bond with a true dog The neutral theory of A modern view of diversity is as lasting as the ties of biodiversity this earth can ever be 92 Save the biosphere and Animal behavior 153 Only a community you may save the world of researchers has a Human activity 118 Redefine “tool”, redefine chance of revealing and biodiversity “man”, or accept the complex whole chimpanzees as humans Big ecology 96 We are in the opening Using animal models to phase of a mass understand human behavior 154 The best strategy extinction depends on what Biodiversity hotspots others are doing Evolutionarily stable state 126 All bodily activity THE VARIETY depends on temperature OF LIFE Thermoregulation in insects 102 It is the microbes that ECOSYSTEMS will have the last word Microbiology 132 Every distinct part of nature’s works is 104 Certain tree species necessary for the have a symbiosis support of the rest with fungi The food chain The ubiquity of mycorrhizae 134 All organisms are 106 Food is the potential sources of food burning question for other organisms Animal ecology The ecosystem

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 156 Species maintain the 170 I have great faith THE LIVING EARTH functioning and stability in a seed of ecosystems Ecological succession 198 The glacier was God’s Biodiversity and ecosystem great plow function 172 The community Ancient ice ages arises, grows, ORGANISMS IN matures, and dies 200 There is nothing A CHANGING Climax community on the map to mark ENVIRONMENT the boundary line 174 An association Biogeography 162 The philosophical study is not an organism of nature connects the but a coincidence 202 Global warming isn’t a present with the past Open community theory prediction. It is happening The distribution of species Global warming over space and time 176 A group of species that exploit their 204 Living matter is the most 164 The virtual increase of the environment in powerful geological force population is limited by a similar way The biosphere the fertility of the country The ecological guild The Verhulst equation 206 The system of nature 178 The citizen Biomes 166 The first requisite is network depends a thorough knowledge on volunteers 210 We take nature’s services of the natural order Citizen science for granted because we Organisms and their don’t pay for them environment 184 Population dynamics A holistic view of Earth become chaotic 167 Plants live on a different when the rate of 212 Plate tectonics is not all timescale reproduction soars havoc and destruction The foundations of Chaotic population change Moving continents plant ecology and evolution 185 To visualize the big 168 The causes of differences picture, take a 214 Life changes Earth among plants distant view to its own purposes Climate and vegetation Macroecology The Gaia hypothesis 186 A population of populations Metapopulations 188 Organisms change and construct the world in which they live Niche construction 190 Local communities that exchange colonists Metacommunities

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 218 65 million years ago 270 The introduction something killed half of a few rabbits could of all the life on do little harm the Earth Invasive species Mass extinctions 274 As temperatures increase, 224 Burning all fuel the delicately balanced reserves will initiate system falls into disarray the runaway greenhouse Spring creep Environmental feedback loops 242 The chemical barrage 280 One of the main threats has been hurled against to biodiversity is THE HUMAN the fabric of life infectious diseases FACTOR The legacy of pesticides Amphibian viruses 230 Environmental pollution 248 A long journey 281 Imagine trying to build is an incurable disease from discovery a house while someone Pollution to political action keeps stealing your bricks Acid rain Ocean acidification 236 God cannot save these trees from fools 250 A finite world can support 282 The environmental Endangered habitats only a finite population damage of urban sprawl Overpopulation cannot be ignored 240 We are seeing the Urban sprawl beginnings of a rapidly 252 Dark skies are now changing planet blotted out 284 Our oceans are turning The Keeling Curve Light pollution into a plastic soup A plastic wasteland 254 I am fighting for humanity 286 Water is a public trust Deforestation and a human right The water crisis 260 The hole in the ozone layer is a kind of skywriting Ozone depletion 262 We needed a mandate for change Depletion of natural resources 266 Bigger and bigger boats chasing smaller and fewer fish Overfishing

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 306 The time has come for 324 We are playing dice with science to busy itself the natural environment with the Earth itself The economic impact of Environmental ethics climate change 308 Think globally, 326 Monocultures and act locally monopolies are destroying The Green Movement the harvest of seed Seed diversity 310 The consequences of today’s actions on 328 Natural ecosystems and tomorrow’s world their species help sustain Man and the Biosphere and fulfill human life Programme Ecosystem services ENVIRONMENTALISM 312 Predicting a population’s 330 We are living on this AND CONSERVATION size and its chances planet as though we have of extinction another one to go to 296 The dominion of man Population viability analysis Waste disposal over nature rests only on knowledge 316 Climate change is 332 DIRECTORY Humankind’s dominance happening here. It 340 GLOSSARY over nature is happening now 344 INDEX Halting climate change 351 QUOTE ATTRIBUTIONS 352 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 322 The capacity to sustain the world’s population Sustainable biosphere initiative 297 Nature is a great economist The peaceful coexistence of humankind and nature 298 In wildness is the preservation of the world Romanticism, conservation, and ecology 299 Man everywhere is a disturbing agent Human devastation of Earth 300 Solar energy is both without limit and without cost Renewable energy

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS FOREWORD As a small child, I was fascinated by nature—birds, I am delighted that Dorling Kindersley decided to produce butterflies, plants, reptiles, fossils, rivers, weather, and much The Ecology Book, setting out the key concepts that have else. My youthful passions set me on the path to being a helped shape our understanding of how Earth’s incredible life-long naturalist, and to working as an environmentalist, natural systems function. In the pages that follow readers studying the natural world and promoting action for its will also discover something about the history of ecological conservation. I have worked as a field ornithologist, writer, concepts, the leading thinkers, and the different perspectives campaigner, policy advocate, and environmental advisor. All from which they approached the questions they sought of these diverse interests and activities have, however, been to answer. linked by a single theme: ecology. One thing that sets this book apart is the manner Ecology is a vast subject, embracing the many disciplines in which the rich, memorable, and attractive content needed to understand the relationships that exist between is presented. A huge body of information and insight is different living things, and the physical worlds of air, water, effectively conveyed by clear layout, graphics, illustrations, and rock within which they are embedded. From the study and quotes, enabling readers to quickly achieve an of soil microorganisms to the role of pollinators, and from understanding of many important ecological ideas and research into the water cycle to investigating Earth’s climate the people behind them: James Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis, system, ecology involves many specialist areas. It also Norman Myers’s warnings about impending mass extinction, unites many strands of science, including zoology, botany, and Rachel Carson’s work to expose the effects of toxic mathematics, chemistry, and physics, as well as some pesticides among them. aspects of social science—especially economics—while at the same time raising profound philosophical and The diverse body of information found in the pages that ethical questions. follow could not be more important. For while the headlines and popular debate suggest it is politics, technology, and Because of the fundamental ways in which the human economics that are the vital forces shaping our common world depends on healthy natural systems, some of the most future, it is in the end ecology that is the most important important political issues of our age are ecological ones. They context determining societies’ prospects, and indeed the include climate change, the effects of ecosystem damage, future of civilization itself. the disappearance of wildlife, and the depletion of resources, including fish stocks, freshwater, and soils. All these I hope you find The Ecology Book to be an enlightening ecological changes have implications for people and are overview of what is not only the most important subject, but increasingly pressing. also the most interesting. Considering the huge importance of ecology for our Tony Juniper CBE modern world, and the many threads of thought and ideas Environmentalist that must be woven to gain an understanding of the subject,

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РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 14 INTRODUCTION For the earliest humans, Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus organisms change over time, and a rudimentary knowledge developed a classification system, even become extinct. The of ecology—how organisms Systema Naturae, the first scientific Frenchman Jean-Baptiste Lamarck relate to one another—was a matter attempt to name species and proposed the first cohesive theory of life and death. Without having group them according to of evolution—the transmutation a basic understanding of why relatedness. Throughout this of species by the inheritance of animals grazed in a certain place time, essentialism—the idea that acquired characteristics—in 1809. and fruit-bearing plants grew in each species had unalterable However, some 50 years later it was another, our ancestors would not characteristics—continued to Charles Darwin—influenced by his have survived and evolved. dominate Western thought. experiences on the epic expedition of HMS Beagle—and Alfred Russel How living animals and plants Great breakthroughs Wallace, who developed the concept interact with each other, and Geological discoveries in the late of evolution by means of natural with the nonliving environment 17th and early 18th centuries began selection, the theory that organisms interested the ancient Greeks. to challenge the idea of essentialism. evolve over the course of generations In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle Geologists noted that some fossil to adapt better to their environment. and his student Theophrastus species suddenly disappeared Darwin and Wallace did not developed theories of animal from the geological record and were understand the mechanism by metabolism and heat regulation, replaced by others, suggesting that which this happened, but Gregor dissected birds’ eggs to discover Mendel’s experiments on peas how they grew, and described There are some 4 million pointed at the role of hereditary an 11-level “ladder of life,” the first different kinds of animals and factors later known as genes, attempt at classifying organisms. representing another giant leap in Aristotle also explained how some plants in the world. Four evolutionary theory. animals consume others—the first million different solutions to description of a food chain. the problems of staying alive. Making connections The relationships between In the Middle Ages (476–1500), David Attenborough organisms and their environment, the Catholic Church discouraged and between species, dominated new scientific thought, and human ecological study in the early understanding of ecology advanced 20th century. The concepts of very slowly. By the 16th century, food chains and food webs (who however, maritime exploration, eats what in a particular habitat) coupled with great technological and ecological niches (the role an advances, such as the invention organism has in its environment) of the microscope, led to the developed, and in 1935, Arthur discovery of amazing life forms and a thirst for knowledge about them.

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS INTRODUCTION 15 Tansley introduced the concept New concerns botany, and their microdisciplines, of the ecosystem—the interactive Early ecology was driven by a it relies on geology, geomorphology, relationship between living desire for knowledge. Later, it was climatology, chemistry, physics, organisms and the environment used to find better ways to exploit genetics, sociology, and more. in which they live. Later ecologists the natural world for human needs. Ecology influences local and developed mathematical models to As time went on, the consequences national government decisions forecast population dynamics within of this exploitation became about urbanization, transportation, ecosystems. Evolutionary theories increasingly evident. Deforestation industry, and economic growth. also advanced with the discovery was highlighted as a problem as The challenges posed by climate of the structure of DNA, and the early as the 18th century, and the change, rising sea levels, habitat evolutionary “vehicle” provided problems of air and water pollution destruction, the extinction of by mutation as DNA is replicated. became obvious in industrialized species, plastic and other forms of nations in the 19th century. In 1962, pollution, and a looming water crisis New frontiers Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring pose serious threats to human Improved technology opened up alerted the world to the dangers of civilization. They demand radical new possibilities for ecology. An pesticides, and six years later Gene policy responses based on sound electron microscope can now Likens demonstrated the link science. Ecology will provide the make images to half the width of a between power station emissions, answers. It is up to governments hydrogen atom, and computer acid rain, and fish deaths. to apply them. ■ programs can analyze the sounds made by bats and whales, which are In 1985, a team of Antarctic Even in the vast and higher or lower than can be heard scientists discovered the dramatic mysterious reaches of the sea by the human ear. Camera traps and depletion of atmospheric ozone infrared detectors photograph and over Antarctica. The link between we are brought back to the film nocturnal creatures, and tiny greenhouse gases and a warming fundamental truth that satellite devices fitted to birds can of Earth’s lower atmosphere had nothing lives to itself. track their movements. been made as early as 1947 by Rachel Carson G. Evelyn Hutchinson, but it was In the laboratory, analysis of decades before there was a scientific the DNA of feces, fur, or feathers consensus on the man-made causes indicates which species an animal of climate change. belongs to, and throws light on the relationship between different The future organisms. It is now easier than Modern ecology has come a long ever for ecologists to collect data, way since the science was first helped by a growing army of recognized. It now draws on many citizen scientists. disciplines. In addition to zoology,

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РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 18 INTRODUCTION In his Essay on the Theory HMS Beagle sets sail on a of the Earth, Georges Cuvier circumnavigation of the world, with James Hutton presents suggests that fossils are the his theory that Earth is remains of extinct creatures Charles Darwin serving as the much older than was voyage’s naturalist. The trip provides previously believed, and wiped out by periodic “catastrophic” events. Darwin with the information that that Earth’s crust is inspired his theory of evolution continuously changing. by natural selection. 1785 1813 1831 1809 1823 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Amateur fossil publishes Philosophie Zoologique, hunter Mary Anning where he argues that animals acquire uncovers the first intact characteristics as a consequence of plesiosaurus skeleton. use or nonuse of different body parts, triggering mutations over generations. Ancient myths, religions, and was the driving force behind this these processes take place slowly, philosophies all reflect an change. He speculated that Earth’s history had to be much enduring fascination with characteristics acquired by animals longer than was previously thought. how the world began and man’s during their lifetime were inherited place in the story of life on Earth. In by the next generation: giraffes, for Natural selection the West, Christianity held that all example, became slightly longer- In 1858, Charles Darwin and Alfred animals and plants were the result necked by stretching up to reach Russel Wallace delivered a paper of a perfect creation. On the chain higher leaves, and passed this trait that would change biology forever. or ladder of being, no species could to their offspring; over many Darwin’s observations on the epic ever move from one position to generations, giraffes grew longer voyage of the Beagle (1831–36), another. Species were immutable, and longer necks. his correspondence with other an idea called essentialism. naturalists, and the influence Fossil evidence of extinct life of Thomas Malthus’s writings The 18th-century Age of forms with features that resembled inspired Darwin’s insight that Enlightenment began to challenge modern descendants, found by evolution came about by what he orthodox Christian beliefs. French pioneering geologists such as called natural selection. He spent zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Georges Cuvier, also suggested 20 years gathering supporting data, rejected the prevailing Bible-based Earth had more ancient origins. but when Wallace wrote to him notion of Earth being only a few Meanwhile James Hutton and with the same idea, Darwin thousand years old. He argued that Charles Lyell argued that geological realized it was time to go public. organisms must have changed from features could be accounted for by His subsequent book, On the simple life forms to more complex the constant, ongoing processes Origin of Species by Means of ones over millions of years, and that of erosion, and deposition—a view Natural Selection, provoked outrage. the “transmutation” of species called uniformitarianism. Because

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 19 THE STORY OF EVOLUTION Gregor Mendel’s paper The Selfish Gene by “Experiments with Plant Hybrids” evolutionary biologist Richard outlines findings from his pea Dawkins offers a new plant experiments, laying perspective on evolution, the foundations for the looking at the gene, as opposed field of genetics. to the species or group. 1866 1976 1859 1953 2003 Darwin elaborates on his In The Eagle pub in The Human Genome theories of evolution in On the Cambridge, UK, Crick and Project produces the first Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, which Watson announce that genetic blueprint of they have discovered Homo sapiens. is an instant sellout. the structure of DNA. Although the idea of evolution of thought were complementary, that genetic information is “written” became widely accepted, the rather than contradictory. In 1942, on DNA molecules. The errors that mechanism that made natural Julian Huxley articulated the occur when DNA copies itself create selection possible was not yet synthesis between Mendel’s mutations—the raw materials for known. In 1866, an Austrian monk genetics and Darwin’s theory evolution. By the 1980s it was called Gregor Mendel made a huge of natural selection in his book possible to map and manipulate the contribution to genetics when he Evolution: The Modern Synthesis. genes of individuals and species. In published his findings on heredity the 1990s, the mapping the human in pea plants. Mendel described The double helix genome paved the way for medical how dominant and recessive traits Advances in technology such as research into gene therapy. pass from one generation to the X-ray crystallography led to more next, by means of invisible “factors” discoveries in the 1940s and ’50s, Ecologists also want to establish that we now call genes. and the foundation of the new whether genes influence behavior. discipline of molecular biology. Back in 1964, William D. Hamilton The rediscovery of Mendel’s In 1944, chemist Oswald Avery popularized the concept of genetic work in 1900 initially sparked sharp identified deoxyribonucleic acid relatedness (“kin selection”) to debate between his supporters and (DNA) as the agent for heredity. explain altruistic behavior in many Darwinians. At the time, Rosalind Franklin and Raymond animals. In The Selfish Gene (1976), evolution was believed to be based Gosling photographed strands of the Richard Dawkins further advanced on the selection of small, blending DNA molecule in 1952, and James the gene-centered approach. It is variations, but Mendel’s variations Watson and Francis Crick confirmed clear that aspects of evolutionary clearly did not blend. Three decades its double helix structure the biology will still spark debate as later, geneticist Ronald Fisher and following year. Crick then showed long as ecologists continue to others argued that the two schools develop Darwin’s theory. ■

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 20 FTAOINMRDENNIAESTVIUENRRSEIAGDNIIFFFICICAUNLTT, Y EARLY THEORIES OF EVOLUTION IN CONTEXT Before the 18th century, most material, struck off the Sun by a people believed that plant comet, that had taken 70,000 years KEY FIGURES and animal species stayed to cool (a huge underestimate, in The Comte de Buffon unchanged throughout time—a view fact). As Earth cooled, species had (1707–88), Jean-Baptiste now known as essentialism. This appeared, died off, and were finally Lamarck (1744–1829) idea came under challenge as a replaced by ancestors of those result of two developments: the known today. Noting similarities BEFORE intellectual movement known as the among animals such as lions, 1735 Swedish botanist Carl Enlightenment (c. 1715–1800), and tigers, and cats, Buffon deduced Linnaeus publishes Systema the Industrial Revolution (1760–1840). that 200 species of quadrupeds had Naturae, a system of biological evolved from just 38 ancestors. He classification that later helped The Enlightenment was marked also believed that changes in body to determine species’ ancestry. by scientific progress and increased shape and size in related species questioning of religious orthodoxy, had occurred in response to living 1751 In “Système de la nature” such as the claim that God created in different environments. French philosopher Pierre Earth and all living things in seven Louis Moreau de Maupertuis days. Then, as the Industrial In 1800, French naturalist Jean- introduces the idea that Revolution gathered pace, canals, Baptiste Lamarck went further. In a features can be inherited. railroads, mines, and quarries lecture at the Museum of Natural cut through rock strata and revealed AFTER thousands of fossils, mostly of Nature is the system of laws 1831 Etienne Geoffroy Saint- animal and plant species that no established by the Creator for Hilaire writes that sudden longer existed and had never been the existence of things and environmental change can seen before. These suggested that for the succession of creatures. cause a new species to develop life began long before the widely from an existing organism. accepted creation date of 4400 bce, The Comte de Buffon deduced from biblical sources. 1844 In Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, Scottish Animal adaptation geologist Robert Chambers In the late 1700s, French scientist argues—anonymously—that Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de simple creatures have evolved Buffon, upset church authorities into more complex species. by asserting that Earth was much older than the Bible suggested. He believed it was formed from molten

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 21 THE STORY OF EVOLUTION See also: Extinction and change 22 ■ Uniformitarianism 23 ■ Evolution by natural selection 24–31 ■ The rules of heredity 32–33 History in Paris, he argued that …continuous use of Jean-Baptiste traits acquired by a creature during any organ gradually Lamarck its lifetime could be inherited by strengthens, develops its offspring—and that a buildup and enlarges that organ. Born in 1744, Jean-Baptiste of such changes over many Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Lamarck attended a Jesuit generations could radically alter college before joining the an animal’s anatomy. develop from simple to more French army. Forced by an complex forms in a “ladder” of injury to resign, he studied Lamarck wrote several books progress. The other, via the medicine and then pursued in which he developed this idea inheritance of acquired traits, his passion for plants, working of transmutation. He argued, for helped them adapt better to their at the Jardin du Roi (Royal instance, that the use or nonuse of environment. When Charles Darwin Garden) in Paris. Supported body parts eventually resulted in developed his theory of evolution by the Comte de Buffon, such features becoming stronger, by means of natural selection, he Lamarck was elected to the weaker, bigger, or smaller in a would reject many of Lamarck’s Academy of Sciences in 1779. species. For example, the ancestors ideas, but both men shared the When the Jardin’s main of moles probably had good belief that complex life evolved building became the new eyesight, but over generations over an immense period of time. ■ National Museum of Natural this deteriorated because moles did History during the French not require vision as they burrowed Fossil finds changed ideas about Revolution (1789–99), Lamarck underground. Similarly, giraffes how life began. The first example of an was placed in charge of the gradually developed longer necks articulated plesiosaur—Plesiosaurus study of insects, worms, and to enable them to reach leaves dolichodeirus—was discovered in 1823 microscopic organisms. He growing high up in trees. by Mary Anning in Dorset, England. coined the biological term “invertebrate” and often used Drivers of evolution the relatively simpler forms of Larmarck’s ideas about inherited such species to illustrate his acquired traits were part of a wider “ladder” of evolutionary early theory of evolution. He also progress. However, Lamarck’s believed that the earliest, simplest work was controversial and forms of life had emerged directly he died in poverty in 1829. from nonliving matter. Lamarck identified two main“life forces” Key works driving evolutionary change. One, he believed, made organisms 1802 Research on the Organization of Living Bodies 1809 Zoological Philosophy 1815–22 Natural History of Invertebrate Animals

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 22 BTAOYWCOOAURTRLASDS,TPDRREOSEPVTHIROEOUYSED EXTINCTION AND CHANGE IN CONTEXT I n the early days of studying believe that the evidence of fossil fossils, many people denied remains supported a theory of KEY FIGURE they could be extinct species. evolution. Nevertheless, Cuvier’s Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) They failed to see why God would central views have continued to create and destroy creatures before win support, and modern evidence BEFORE humans ever appeared, arguing points to at least five catastrophic Late 1400s Leonardo da Vinci that unfamiliar fossil species might mass extinction events in Earth’s argues that fossils are the still be living somewhere on Earth. past, including the one that wiped remains of living creatures, In the late 18th century, French out the dinosaurs. Unlike Cuvier, not just shapes spontaneously zoologist Georges Cuvier looked however, today’s scientists know formed in the earth. into this by exploring the anatomy that life is not recreated out of of living and fossil elephants. He nothing after a catastrophe. Rather, 1660s English scientist Robert proved that fossil forms such as when a mass extinction event kills Hooke suggests that fossils are mammoths and mastodons were off many species, those left will extinct creatures, since no anatomically distinct from living evolve and multiply—sometimes similar forms can be found elephants, so they must represent relatively quickly—to fill vacant on Earth today. extinct species. (It was highly ecological niches, as the mammals unlikely that they still lived on did after the age of the dinosaurs. ■ AFTER Earth without being noticed.) 1841 English anatomist Richard Owen calls huge Cuvier believed that Earth had reptile fossils “dinosaurs.” experienced a series of distinct ages, each of which ended with a 1859 Charles Darwin’s On the “revolution” that destroyed existing Origin of Species explains how flora and fauna. He did not, though, evolution can occur through “natural selection.” Cuvier coined the name “mastodon” for its Greek meaning of “breast tooth,” 1980 US scientists Luis referring to the nipplelike patterns on and Walter Alvarez present the creature’s teeth, which were unlike evidence that an asteroid those of any living elephants. hit Earth at the time of the See also: Evolution by natural selection 24–31 ■ Ecological niches 50–51 extinction of the dinosaurs. ■ An ancient ice age 198–199 ■ Mass extinctions 218–223

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 23 THE STORY OF EVOLUTION PNBREOGOVISENPSNETICNIGTGE,ONOFOFAAN END UNIFORMITARIANISM IN CONTEXT U niformitarianism is the … from what has actually theory that geological been, we have data for KEY FIGURE processes, such as the concluding [what] is James Hutton (1726–97) laying down of sediment, erosion, to happen thereafter. and volcanic activity, occur at the James Hutton BEFORE same rate now as they did in the 1778 The Comte de Buffon, a past. The idea emerged in the late that most geological processes French naturalist, suggests 18th century, as mining, quarrying, happen so gradually that the that Earth is at least 75,000 and increased travel brought ever features he was discovering must years old—far older than most more geological features to light, be astronomically old. people believed at the time. including unusual rock strata and previously unknown fossils, whose Uniformitarianism was not 1787 German geologist origins were then widely debated. generally accepted at once, not Abraham Werner proposes least because it challenged a literal that Earth’s layers of rock The generally accepted view interpretation of the creation stories formed from a great ocean that that Earth was only a few thousand of the Old Testament. However, a once covered the entire planet. years old had been challenged by new generation of geologists, such His followers became known the Comte de Buffon, and in 1785 as John Playfair and Charles Lyell, as Neptunists. Scottish geologist James Hutton threw their intellectual weight also argued for Earth’s far greater behind Hutton’s ideas, which also AFTER antiquity. Hutton’s ideas were inspired a young Charles Darwin. ■ 1802 James Hutton’s theory formed during expeditions around of uniformitarianism reaches a Scotland to examine layers of rock. wider audience when Scottish He believed that Earth’s crust was geologist John Playfair constantly changing, albeit mostly publishes Illustrations of the slowly, and could see no reason to Huttonian Theory of the Earth. suggest that the complex geological actions of layering, erosion, and 1830–33 Principles of Geology, uplifting took place faster in the by Scottish geologist Charles distant past than they did in the Lyell, supports and builds on present. Hutton also understood the uniformitarian ideas of James Hutton. See also: Early theories of evolution 20–21 ■ Evolution by natural selection 24–31 ■ Moving continents and evolution 212–213 ■ Mass extinctions 218–223

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS ETHXE ISSTRTUGEGNLECFOER EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 26 EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION IN CONTEXT N atural selection, a concept Natural selection is daily developed by British and hourly scrutinizing, KEY FIGURE naturalist Charles Darwin throughout the world, Charles Darwin (1809–82) and set out in his book On the the slightest variations. Origin of Species by Means of BEFORE Natural Selection (1859), is the Charles Darwin 1788 In France, Georges-Louis key mechanism of evolution in Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, organisms, resulting in different completes his 36-volume survival rates and reproductive Histoire Naturelle, outlining abilities. Those organisms that have early ideas about evolution. higher breeding success pass on their genes to more of the next 1809 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck generation, so individuals with proposes that creatures evolve these characteristics become by inheriting acquired traits. more common. AFTER To the Galapagos thousands of years. As Darwin 1869 Friedrich Miescher, a The young Charles Darwin first looked at landscapes around the Swiss doctor, discovers DNA, began to consider evolution during world that had been affected by although its genetic role is not his pioneering scientific expedition processes of erosion, deposition, and yet understood. around the world aboard HMS volcanism, he began to speculate Beagle from 1831 to 1836. As a young about animal species changing over 1900 The laws of inheritance man, Darwin accepted the orthodox very long time periods, and the based on the pea plant interpretation of the Bible, that Earth reasons for such changes. By experiments of Austrian was only a few thousand years old. examining fossils and observing scientist Gregor Mendel in the However, while he was on board living animals, Darwin identified mid-1800s are rediscovered. the Beagle, Darwin read Scottish patterns; he noticed, for example, geologist Charles Lyell’s recently that extinct species had often been 1942 British biologist Julian published Principles of Geology, in replaced by similar, but distinct, Huxley coins the term “modern which Lyell demonstrated that rocks modern ones. synthesis” for the mechanisms bore traces of tiny, gradual, and thought to produce evolution. cumulative change over vast time Darwin’s field work on the periods—millions, rather than islands of the Galapagos archipelago off South America in the fall Charles Darwin Born in Shropshire, UK, in 1809, instantly. Despite continuing Darwin was fascinated by natural ill-health, Darwin fathered history from a young age. While 10 children and never stopped at Cambridge University, he studying and developing new became friendly with several theories. He died in 1882. influential naturalists, including John Stevens Henslow. As a result, Key works Darwin was invited to join the HMS Beagle expedition around the 1839 Zoology of the Voyage world. Henslow helped Darwin of HMS Beagle catalog and publicize his finds. 1859 On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection Darwin’s research brought him 1868 The Variation of Animals fame and recognition—the Royal and Plants under Domestication Society’s Royal Medal in 1853, 1872 The Expression of nd fellowship of the Linnean Emotions in Man and Animals Society in 1854. In 1859, his book On the Origin of Species sold out

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS THE STORY OF EVOLUTION 27 See also: Early theories of evolution 20–21 ■ The rules of heredity 32–33 ■ The role of DNA 34–37 ■ The selfish gene 38–39 ■ The food chain 132–133 ■ Mass extinctions 218–223 ■ Population viability analysis 312–315 of 1835 provided especially strong Comparison of Galapagos finch evidence for his later theory of bill structure evolution by natural selection. Here, he observed that the shape of the Geospiza magnirostris Geospiza fortis carapaces (shells) of giant tortoises The short, sharp bill of the Large The bill of the Medium Ground Finch varied slightly from island to island. Ground Finch, the biggest of Darwin’s is variable, evolving rapidly to adapt Darwin was also intrigued to find finches, enables it to crack nuts. to whatever size seeds are available. that there were four broadly similar, yet clearly distinct, varieties of mockingbirds, but that no single island had more than one species of the bird. He saw small birds, too, that looked alike but had a range of beak sizes and shapes. Darwin deduced that each group possessed a common ancestor but had developed diverse traits in different environments. Darwin’s conclusions Geospiza parvula Certhidea olivacea On Darwin’s return to England, the The stubby bill of the Small Tree Finch, The slender, probing bill of the Green differing beaks of the small birds which forages in foliage, suits its diet he had found on the Galapagos, Warbler-finch helps it catch small usually called “finches” although of seeds, fruits, and insects. insects and spiders. they are not in the true finch family, set him thinking. He knew that populations had evolved in different Malthus predicted that population a bird’s beak is its key tool for Galapagos habitats, each group growth would eventually outstrip feeding, so its length and shape adapted for a more or less specialist food production. This idea matched offer clues to its diet. Later research diet by a process that he would the evidence Darwin had observed revealed that there are 14 different later call “natural selection.” Over of ongoing competition between finch species on the Galapagos time, the finch populations had individual animals and species for islands. The differences in their become distinct species. resources. This competitive aspect beaks are marked and significant. formed the backbone of Darwin’s For example, cactus finches have In the early 21st century, coalescing theory of evolution. long, pointed beaks that are ideal researchers at Harvard University for picking seeds out of cactus uncovered new evidence of how By 1839, Darwin had developed fruits, while ground finches have this happens at a genetic level. an idea of evolution by natural shorter, stouter beaks that are Their findings, published in 2006, selection. He was, though, reluctant better suited for eating large seeds showed that a molecule called to publish because he understood on the ground. Warbler finches have calmodulin regulates the genes that the theory would unleash a slender, sharp beaks, which are involved in shaping birds’ beaks, storm of controversy from those ideal for catching flying insects. and is found at higher levels in who would view it as an attack longer-beaked cactus finches than on religion and the Church. When, Darwin speculated that the in shorter-beaked ground finches. in 1857, he began receiving finches were descended from a communications from fellow British common ancestral finch that had Refining the theory naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, reached the archipelago from the Darwin was influenced by Thomas who had independently arrived at mainland of South America. He Malthus’s An Essay on the Principle very similar conclusions, Darwin concluded that a variety of finch of Population (1798), in which realized he had to publish his ❯❯

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 28 EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION ideas. Papers by Darwin and I see no good reasons why Sex (1871). This theory was distinct Wallace were jointly presented the views given in this from natural selection, as Darwin at a meeting of the Linnean volume should shock the recognized that animals select Society of London in July 1858, mates based on characteristics that under the title “On the Tendency religious views of anyone. do not simply favor survival. For of Species to form Varieties; and Charles Darwin example, when Darwin considered on the Perpetuation of Varieties the spectacular but cumbersome and Species by Natural Means helped an individual organism tails of male peafowl (peacocks), he of Selection.. live longer and reproduce more could not imagine the tail playing successfully would be passed on any role in helping the individual The following year, Darwin to more offspring, while those that bird to survive. He concluded that published the theory in On the made the organism less successful they were designed to boost an Origin of Species by Means of would be lost. Darwin called this individual’s chance of reproductive Natural Selection. It offended some “natural selection”—a process success. Peahens choose males scientists because it differed from that, over generations, enabled with the brightest tails, so the Lamarck’s ideas of transmutation, a population of any given species genetic material of these showy and also upset creationists who to adapt better and thrive in its males is passed to the next argued that it undermined a literal chosen habitat. generation. Bright tail feathers interpretation of the Bible. Others indicate that the bird is healthy, so felt that the theory did not account Sexual selection choosing a mate with a bright tail for the huge range of characteristics Darwin also developed a theory is a good strategy for the peahen. in species and called it “unguided” of sexual selection. First outlined in However, Darwin’s idea that and “nonprogressive.” On the Origin of Species, this was females choose a mate came under developed further in The Descent fire; 19th-century society could Darwin was confident. He knew of Man, and Selection in Relation to accept that males competed to that all individual organisms in a reproduce (intrasexual selection), species show a degree of natural but intersexual selection, where variation; some have longer one sex (usually the female) makes whiskers, or shorter legs, or brighter the choice, was ridiculed. colors, for instance. Because members of all species compete for Reproductive success is clearly limited resources, he deduced that essential for the future of a species. those whose traits are best suited Natural selection is often described to their environment are more likely as “survival of the fittest,” but to survive and reproduce. He also longevity alone is not particularly argued that characteristics that Natural selection There is variation There is differential reproduction. There is heredity. End result: in traits. No environment can support unlimited The dark beetles have If darkness is the For example, some population growth, so some individuals more dark offspring winning trait, producing beetles are pale and lose out. Here, birds eat the pale because this trait has a more offspring, in time, others dark. beetles, so fewer of them reproduce. genetic basis. all beetles will be dark.

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 29 THE STORY OF EVOLUTION Kin selection The peacock with the most splendid description of the scientific process. The term “kin selection” was tail will attract the most peahens. Its In 1930, British geneticist Ronald first used by British biologist bright tail will be passed on to its male Fisher wrote The Genetical Theory John Maynard Smith in 1964. offspring, which will find it similarly of Natural Selection, which It is the evolutionary strategy easy to attract mates. combined Darwin’s theory of that favors the reproductive natural selection with the ideas success of an organism’s helpful. If individual A lives 10 of heredity that the19th-century relatives, prioritizing them times as long as individual B, but Austrian scientist Gregor Mendel above the individual’s own the latter produces twice as many had developed. In 1937, Ukrainian– survival and reproduction. offspring that then also breed, B American geneticist Theodosius ❯❯ It occurs when an organism will pass on more genes to the next engages in self-sacrificial generation than the longer-lived A. behavior that benefits its relatives. Charles Darwin was the first to discuss the concept when he wrote about the apparent paradox represented by altruistic nonbreeding social insects, such as worker honeybees, which leave reproduction to their mothers. British evolutionary biologist William Donald Hamilton proposed that bees, for example, behave in an altruistic manner—assisting others in reproduction—when the genetic closeness of the two bees and the benefit to the recipient outweigh the cost of altruism to the giver. This is called Hamilton’s Rule. Building on the theory Why do some die and some In honeybee colonies, female Many of Darwin’s and Wallace’s live?… the answer was worker bees look after the queen ideas have proved remarkably bee. They build the honeycomb, accurate, despite the fact that clearly, that on the whole the gather nectar and pollen, and feed the workings of genetics were not best fitted live. larvae, but they do not breed. understood at the time. Although Darwin himself had used the Alfred Russel Wallace term “genetic” as an adjective to describe the as-yet-unknown mechanism of inheritance, it was British biologist William Bateson, in the early 20th century, who first used the term “genetics” in a

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 30 EVOLUTION BY NATURAL SELECTION Albinism, as in this albino leopard organism carrying it, whereas environment, they become more gecko, is a mutation causing a lack another might affect all its offspring common over the course of of pigment. This mutation hinders the and future generations. generations. Over time, they may gecko’s chances of survival, making it produce large enough divergences lighter colored and sensitive to light. Inherited mutations may or may from the parent population for a not alter an individual’s phenotype – new species to evolve—a process Dobzhansky put forward the idea its physical traits and behavior. If called speciation. that regularly occurring genetic mutations do affect the phenotype, mutations are sufficient toprovide they may be to its advantage or Mutation rates are usually very the genetic diversity—and disadvantage, helping or hindering low, but the process is ever-present. therefore different traits—that an organism’s ability to survive The changes may be beneficial, makes natural selection possible. and reproduce successfully. If they neutral, or harmful. They do not He wrote that evolution was a hinder, they are likely to disappear occur in response to an organism’s change in the frequency of an from the population; if they help needs, and are, in that respect, “allele” in the gene pool, an allele an organism adapt better to its random. However, some types of being one of the alternative forms of mutations occur more frequently a gene that arise by mutation. The vast majority of large than others. Scientists now know, mutations are deleterious; for example, that evolution can take A mutation is a permanent small mutations are both far place very rapidly in bacteria alteration in the sequence of more frequent and more likely because of their frequent mutations. deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the molecule that makes up a gene to be useful. Different rates of evolution in one individual, resulting in Ronald Fisher The ancestors of all life on Earth a sequence that differs from that were very simple organisms. of other members of the species. Recent scientific research suggest Mutations may occur as the result that the earliest “biogenic” rocks— of the miscopying of DNA during derived from early life forms—date cell division, or they may be caused back nearly four billion years. In by environmental factors, such as that time, highly complex life forms damage resulting from the sun’s have evolved, and later fossils ultraviolet radiation. One mutation of species that look more similar might affect only the individual to those of today reveal what has

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 31 THE STORY OF EVOLUTION Evolution in real time Seen in the light of evolution, Individuals within Richard Lenski, a professor biology is, perhaps, a species have at Michigan State University, intellectually the established the Long-term most satisfying and a variety of forms Experimental Evolution inspiring science. of a characteristic. project in 1988. For more than 25 years, he studied 59,000 Theodosius Dobzhansky generations of the E. coli bacterium. During this time, occurred. For example, a fossil The individuals with he observed that the species record stretches back 60 million the characteristic best used the glucose solution years for ancestors of the horse. suited to the environment it lived in more efficiently, The earliest of these were dog- are more likely to survive increasing in size but also sized forest-dwelling animals with growing faster. Also, a new several toes on each foot. Evolution and breed. species had evolved that was produced much larger horses with able to use a compound in the just a single hoof on each foot, These solution called citrate, which adapted for life on open grasslands characteristics the parent bacterium could where they would often have had are passed on not. Evolving bacteria can to outrun predators. pose a potential threat to to the next humans. Increasing antibiotic Peppered moths (biston generation. use destroys many disease- betularia) reveal change over a causing bacteria, but not those shorter period. The moth is usually Two peppered moths exhibit with mutations that make pale, providing camouflage against evolution at work, the lower one an them resistant to the drugs. the bark of birch trees, but a example of industrial melanism. The As the non-resistant bacteria mutation produces some black dark variety began to appear in British are killed off, the resistant moths. Before the 19th century, cities in the early 1800s. strains become more most peppered moths were pale. dominant, multiplying and During the Industrial Revolution passing on their mutations (1760–1840), however, smoky air left to future generations. That deposits of soot on trees and is natural selection at work. buildings in British cities, and the black form became much commoner. Escherichia (E.) coli bacteria By 1895, 95 percent of peppered can cause serious gut and other moths in Britain’s cities were black, infections that will be increasingly as paler moths were eaten by birds difficult to treat as drug-resistant because their coloring provided no strains of E. coli multiply. camouflage. This phenomenon continues to act as an example of Darwin’s theory in action today, as the pale moth becomes common once more due to the declining soot concentrations in Britain’s cities. ■

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 32 NHCAUORAREMTHRAUIINLNETRGBISMEBIFAUNTOTGERSLGYENES THE RULES OF HEREDITY IN CONTEXT L ong before scientists was not the case when he was cracked the genetic code, working in his monastery garden. KEY ECOLOGIST in 1866 an Austrian monk When he crossed a plant that Gregor Mendel (1822–84) named Gregor Mendel was the first always produced green peas with to show how traits are transferred one that always produced yellow BEFORE through the generations. By means peas, the result was not yellowish- 1802 French biologist Jean- of much painstaking research, green peas—instead, all the peas Baptiste Lamarck suggests Mendel accurately predicted the were yellow. that traits acquired during the basic laws of inheritance. lifetime of an organism are Mendel’s labors transmitted to its offspring. When Mendel began his During the course of his research experiments, scientists believed (1856–63), Mendel grew nearly 1859 Charles Darwin proposes that the various traits seen in 30,000 pea plants over several his theory of evolution and plants and animals were handed generations and carefully recorded natural selection in his book down through a “blending” process. the results. He focused on traits On the Origin of Species by However, Mendel noticed that this Means of Natural Selection. Mendel’s pea experiment AFTER 1869 Swiss chemist Friedrich Mendel’s 1 green 1 yellow PARENT GENERATION Miescher identifies DNA, experiment F1 GENERATION which he terms “nuclein.” with growing peas all yellow proved that the gene 1953 Molecular biologists— carrying the yellow including Briton Francis coloration was Crick and American James dominant while the Watson—discover the gene for green was structure of DNA. recessive. 2000s Researchers in the F2 GENERATION field of epigenetics describe inheritance by mechanisms other than through the DNA sequence of genes. 1 green 3 yellows

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 33 THE STORY OF EVOLUTION See also: Early theories of evolution 20–21 ■ Evolution by natural selection 24–31 ■ The role of DNA 34–37 ■ The selfish gene 38–39 Heredity provides dominant or recessive. When both Gregor Johann Mendel for the modification inherited factors are dominant, of its own machinery. the resulting plant will show the Born Johann Mendel in 1822 James Mark Baldwin dominant trait. With a pair of on a farm in Silesia—then part recessive factors, the plant will of the Austrian Empire and American psychologist show the recessive trait. However, now in the Czech Republic— if one dominant and one recessive Mendel studied philosophy (phenotypes) that had only two factor are present, the plant will and physics at the University distinct forms—for example, white show the dominant trait. of Olomouc (1840–43). At this or purple flowers. When examining time, he became interested the trait of yellow or green peas, Pioneering geneticist in the work of Johann Karl Mendel took green pea plants and Mendel published his paper in Nestler, who was researching cross-pollinated them with yellow 1866, but no one took much notice hereditary traits in plants pea plants. The peas produced from until 1900, when the botanists and animals. In 1847 Mendel this parent generation were all yellow Hugo de Vries, Carl Erich Correns, entered a monastery, where and Mendel named them the F1 and Erich Tschermak von he was given the name generation. He then cross-pollinated Seysenegg discovered his work. Gregor. He then went on pea plants from the F1 generation Scientists then began proving to study science further at with each other to produce the F2 Mendel’s theories more widely. Vienna University (1851–53). generation. He found that some peas produced were yellow and Within just ten years, scientists When Mendel returned some were green. The F1 generation named the pairs of factors “genes” to his monastery in 1853, showed only one trait (yellow), which and showed that they are linked on the abbot Cyril Napp gave Mendel called “dominant.” However, chromosomes. It is now known that him permission to use the in the F2 generation 75 percent had inheritance is far more complex gardens for his research into the dominant yellow trait and 25 than Mendel recognized, but his hybridization. Mendel himself percent displayed the nondominant meticulous research continues to became an abbot in 1868 and —or “recessive”—green trait. form the basis for modern studies. ■ no longer had time for his experiments. Although he Laws of inheritance never received credit for his Mendel theorized that every pea discoveries during his lifetime, plant has two factors controlling he is widely regarded as the each trait. When plants are cross- founder of modern genetics. pollinated, one factor is inherited from each plant. A factor can be Key works Pea plants provided the raw data 1866 “Experiments with Plant that Mendel used to develop his Hybrids,” Verhandlungen des theories explaining the transmission of naturforschenden Vereines traits from one generation to the next. in Brünn

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 34 DOWTHIFSEEL’CVISOFEEVECERREETD IN CONTEXT THE ROLE OF DNA KEY FIGURES Francis Crick (1916–2004), Rosalind Franklin (1920– 58), James Watson (1928–), Maurice Wilkins (1916–2004) BEFORE 1910–29 US biochemist Phoebus Levene describes the chemical components of DNA. 1944 US researchers Oswald Avery, Colin Macleod, and Maclyn McCarty show that DNA determines inheritance. AFTER 1990 British researchers, led by embryologist Ian Wilmut, successfully clone an adult mammal—a sheep named Dolly. 2003 Scientists complete the mapping of the entire human genome. T he discovery of the structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) in 1953 is one of the most important scientific breakthroughs to date. It offered the key to understanding the very building blocks of life and explained how genetic information is stored and transferred. Englishman Francis Crick and American James Watson famously celebrated their joint discovery in a low-key fashion at their local pub in Cambridge, followed by a letter published in the journal Nature. Their discovery had enormous potential for scientific advances and had an important impact on many fields of research, from medicine to forensic science, taxonomy, and agriculture. The ramifications of their work still reverberate today, as methods of

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS THE STORY OF EVOLUTION 35 See also: Early theories of evolution 20–21 ■ Evolution by natural selection 24–31 ■ The rules of heredity 32–33 ■ The selfish gene 38–39 ■ A system for identifying all nature’s organisms 86–87 ■ Biological species concept 88–89 Molecular biologists James Watson College, London, Franklin and DNA is like a computer (left) and Francis Crick (right), pictured Wilkins were developing methods of program but far, far more in 1953 with their double helix model X-raying DNA to view its structure. of DNA. Watson called DNA “the most Watson had seen examples of advanced than any interesting molecule in all nature.” Franklin’s work that hinted at DNA’s software ever created. helical shape shortly before he and handling genetic material advance Crick announced their breakthrough. Bill Gates and we learn more about how individual genes operate. In 1962 Crick, Watson, and with T to form base pair AT, and Wilkins were awarded the Nobel G always pairs with C to form Crick and Watson’s breakthrough Prize for Physiology or Medicine. base pair GC. was the culmination of decades Franklin, who died in 1958, never of research by numerous scientists, received recognition for her part DNA is the blueprint for life. including Rosalind Franklin and in the discovery during her lifetime, Sequences of bases along the Maurice Wilkins. While Crick and although Crick and Watson openly DNA strand constitute the genes Watson worked with 3-D models acknowledged that her work was that provide the information that to figure out how the components essential to their success. determines the complete form and of DNA fitted together, at King’s physiology of an organism. A triplet Double helix structure of bases is known as a codon, and DNA is a molecule featuring two each codon specifies the production long, thin strands that coil around of one of 20 amino acids; the order each other to resemble a twisted in which the amino acids join ladder, in a shape known as a together in a chain determines ❯❯ double helix. Using the ladder analogy, the sides of the ladder are made up of deoxyribose (a sugar) and phosphate, while the rungs of the ladder consist of paired nitrogenous bases, adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). A always pairs up Genetic engineering useful—have greatly simplified A scientist analyzes a sample and accelerated the process. In of DNA. Genetic manipulation in Understanding the structure theory, geneticists can now splice medicine is standard practice and of DNA has enabled scientists any gene with any other. They DNA profiling is a vital forensic tool. to change or “engineer” the have attempted some intriguing genetic material in cells. It is combinations, such as the possible to cut out a gene from insertion of the gene for producing one organism (the donor) and spider silk into goat DNA so place it into the DNA of another that goats produce milk rich in organism. When this practice proteins. Other substances that was first attempted in the 1970s can be produced by modifying it was both difficult and time- genes are hormones and vaccines. consuming, but technological advances—such as Clustered In gene therapy, a genetically Regularly Interspaced Short modified vector (often a virus) is Palindromic Repeats, or CRISPR, used to carry a gene into the DNA which has been particularly of an organism to replace a faulty or unwanted gene.

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 36 THE ROLE OF DNA Genetically the type of protein they go on the ladder down the middle to modified food to make. For example, the produce two single strands. These combination GGA is the codon for act as templates for the production In agriculture, crops may be glycine. Sixty-four possible triplets of a second complementary engineered to enhance them can be made from the four base DNA strand on each of them by in some way. A genetically pairs, and 61 of them code for a matching up the appropriate base altered crop is known as a particular amino acid. The other pairs. The process results in two genetically modified organism three act as signals such as “start” strands of whole DNA that are (GMO). Companies that and ”stop,” which govern how exactly the same as the original. operate in this sector may information is read by the cellular modify a plant’s DNA so that machinery. DNA is also organized Since DNA remains in the it produces more of a certain into separate chromosomes, of nucleus of the cell, a related molecule nutrient or a toxin specific to which there are 23 pairs in the called messenger ribonucleic acid a particular insect pest. The human cell. (mRNA) copies segments of DNA DNA of a plant may also be coding sequence and carries the altered to become resistant to Copying the code information to the regions of the a particular herbicide, so that When cells divide, DNA needs to cell where new proteins are made. use of the chemical kills only be copied. This is achieved by the RNA is chemically related to DNA, the weeds and not the crop. splitting of base pairs, which cuts but the thymine base (T) is replaced by the base uracil (U), Some ecologists argue that The structure of DNA which is less stable but requires there is a risk of genetically less energy to make. Stable living unmodified plants becoming organisms benefit from having contaminated by GMOs. They DNA genomes, but RNA makes up also point out that the long- genomes of some viruses, where term effects of eating such stability can be less advantageous. foods are as yet not properly understood. Another concern DNA is found in all living things is that in the future large on Earth, from amoebae to insects, agrochemical companies could to trees, tigers, and humans. Of control the world’s food supply course, the sequence of base pairs by patenting the GMOs that varies, and this difference allows they produce, to the detriment geneticists to trace relationships of poorer nations. between different species. adenine thymine Good and bad errors cytosine guanine DNA is a highly stable molecule, but sometimes mistakes, known New kinds of rice are being A DNA molecule consists of a double as mutations, occur. These can be developed through genetic helix formed by two strands, made up in the form of an error, duplication, modification. This may improve of sugars and phosphates, linked by or omission in the order of the the nutritional value of the crop paired base nucleotides: adenine and nucleotides A, C, G, and T. Mutation or its resistance to disease. thymine or cytosine and guanine. can be spontaneous—the result of errors that occur when the DNA is copied—or may be induced by external influences such as exposure to radiation or cancer- causing chemicals. Some mutations have no effect, but others may change what the gene produces or inhibit the functioning of a gene. This can lead to problems in the organism as a whole. Examples

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 37 THE STORY OF EVOLUTION DNA barcoding of disorders caused by gene Mutated blood cells occur in The idea of DNA barcoding mutations include cystic fibrosis sickle-cell disease—a genetic disorder was first raised in 2003 when and sickle-cell disease. passed on when both parents carry a team at the University of the faulty gene. It can be painful and Guelph, Canada, suggested Although many mutations are increases the risk of serious infections. that it would be possible to harmful, occasionally a mutation identify species by analyzing will confer an advantage on an parent. Additionally, with access a common section of their individual, enabling it to survive in to such data it is possible to DNA. Led by Dr. Paul Hebert, its environment better than others screen embryos for known genetic researchers chose a region in of the same species. This type of disorders before implantation in the the gene known as cytochrome mutation may end up being passed womb. By March 2018, the DNA of c oxidase 1 (“CO1”), made up on through the process of natural around 15,000 organisms had been of 648 base pairs. This region selection. Over many generations, sequenced. Such information can is quick to analyze, but the mutation is a mechanism for help show how animals are related sequence is still long enough diversification, survival of the in the evolutionary line and how to differentiate between and fittest, and ultimately evolution. they have diversified. within animal species. Different gene segments can The human genome While the discovery of the be used for other forms of life. On April 14, 2003, scientists composition and structure of DNA completed the lengthy task of has revolutionized the science of The first part of the mapping (sequencing) the entire heredity, it is worth noting that barcoding system involves human genome. Geneticists worked the regions of DNA used for coding cataloguing samples of known out the precise position of all the proteins account for just 2 percent species. The DNA is extracted base pairs in a chain of some three of the entire human genome. and organized into a sequence billion of the base nucleotides The nature of the other 98 percent of base pairs, a process known comprising an estimated 30,000 is not yet fully understood by as “sequencing.” The sequence individual genes. This has allowed geneticists, but it is believed that at is then stored in a computer geneticists to identify new genes least some of these regions involve database, so that when a DNA and the role they play in organisms. the regulation of the way genes are sample from an unknown expressed, or activated. It seems species is sequenced and Armed with this knowledge, that many more discoveries await entered into the database, the an individual can find out if they future geneticists. ■ computer will match it with have inherited a faulty gene from a existing records. The barcoding technique has proved useful for taxonomy, helping classify animals and plants. With genetic engineering, we will be able … to improve the human race. Stephen Hawking

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 38 GENES ARE MSEOLLFEICSUHLES THE SELFISH GENE IN CONTEXT T he concept of the “selfish for the bodily types and behaviors gene” was popularized (phenotypic traits) that successfully KEY FIGURE by British evolutionary promote their own propagation. Richard Dawkins (1941–) biologist Richard Dawkins in his Supporters of the theory argue that 1976 book of that name. It states because heritable information is BEFORE that evolution is fundamentally passed through the generations by 1963 British biologist William based upon the survival of different the genetic material of DNA, both Donald Hamilton writes about forms of a particular gene at the natural selection and evolution the “selfish interests” of the expense of others. The forms that are best considered from the gene in The Evolution of survive are those that are responsible perspective of genes. Altruistic Behaviur. Natural selection works toward the survival 1966 American biologist of the gene, not the individual. George C. Williams proposes in his book Adaptation and Male black widow Animals that warn Natural Selection that altruism spiders mate others of approaching is a result of selection taking even though the place at the level of the gene. predators sacrifice females eat them themselves at the AFTER immediately after. 1982 Richard Dawkins argues expense of the in The Extended Phenotype wider group. that the study of an organism should include analysis of Nonbreeding bees in bee how its genes affect the colonies serve to help the surrounding environment. community survive. 2002 Stephen Jay Gould critiques Dawkins’ theory in The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, which revisits and refines the ideas of classical Darwinism.

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 39 THE STORY OF EVOLUTION See also: Evolution by natural selection 24–31 ■ The rules of heredity 32–33 ■ The role of DNA 34–37 ■ Mutualisms 56–59 A male black widow spider gingerly circumstances in which the gene Richard Dawkins approaches a huge female to mate. This can achieve its own selfish goals by genetically driven act will reproduce fostering apparent altruism in the Richard Dawkins was born his genes but will lead to his death. organism. One example is kin in Kenya to British parents. selection, the evolutionary strategy After the family returned to Dawkins was strongly influenced that favours the reproductive the UK, he developed a strong by the work of William Donald success of an individual organism’s interest in the natural world Hamilton on the nature of altruism relatives, even at the cost of the and studied zoology at Oxford and closely examined the biology individual’s own reproduction University. While there, he of selfishness and altruism in The or survival. was tutored by Nobel Prize- Selfish Gene. He argued that winner Niko Tinbergen, who organisms were simply vehicles An extreme example of was a pioneer of animal that supported their genes, or genetically based altruism is behavior studies. After a “replicators.” Genes that help an eusociality. Honey bees are a eusocial brief period at the University organism survive and reproduce species. They live in colonies which of California at Berkeley, tend also to improve those genes’ include breeding and non-breeding Dawkins returned to Oxford own chances of being replicated. individuals. By helping the colony to lecture in zoology. survive, the many thousands of Successful genes often provide non-breeding worker bees ensure Richard Dawkins is best a benefit to the host organism. For the reproduction of the genes they known for his book The Selfish example, a gene that protects an have in common with the sole Gene, in which he argues animal or plant against disease breeding individual, the queen. that the gene is the principle thereby helps that particular gene unit of selection in evolution. to spread. However, the interests of Critics of Dawkins’ theory argue His theory later triggered a the replicator and the vehicle may that since individual genes do not series of fierce debates with sometimes seem to be in conflict. control behaviour, they cannot be Stephen Jay Gould and other Genes drive the male black widow said to be acting selfishly. Dawkins evolutionary biologists. spider to mate despite the risk of has maintained that he never Dawkins is also known as a being eaten by her. However, the meant to suggest that genes had strong advocate of atheism male’s sacrifice nourishes the their own conscious will. He later and feminism. female and improves the prospect wrote that “the immortal gene” of his genes being passed on. might have been a better title for Key works both his concept and the book. ■ 1976 The Selfish Gene The theory of evolution 1982 The Extended Phenotype is about as much 1986 The Blind Watchmaker 2006 The God Delusion open to doubt as the 2009 The Greatest Show theory that the Earth on Earth: The Evidence goes around the Sun. for Evolution Richard Dawkins Selfishness and altruism Gene selfishness usually gives rise to selfishness in the behavior of an individual organism, but there are

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РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 42 INTRODUCTION Joseph Grinnell publishes Robert MacArthur’s Dan Janzen observes the his research on the California research on North American interdependence of acacia warblers shows how different trees and the ants that reside Thrasher, establishing the species can avoid directly on them, and concludes that basis for the theory of competing with each other ecological niches. the species evolved in a in order to coexist. mutualistic manner. 1917 1957 1965 1925–26 1961 1969 The Lotka-Volterra model uses Joseph Connell reveals that Robert Paine a mathematical equation to different types of barnacle coins the term “keystone thrive in different tidal species” to describe species describe the interactions between zones, although they could, that play a crucial role in predator and prey. in theory, live in any of them. ecosystem functions. In the 5th century BCE, the Greek beyond their own local area. As Alfred Lotka introduced one of the historian Herodotus described technology improved and people first mathematical models ever watching crocodiles open their began to travel the world, scientists applied to ecology. Now known jaws for plovers to pick food from such as Robert Hooke, Antonie van as the Lotka-Volterra model, its their teeth. He may have been the Leeuwenhoek, Carl Linnaeus, predator–prey equations help first to write about an ecological Alexander von Humboldt, Alfred predict the population fluctuations process—in this case a mutualistic Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin, of these two groups. relationship between reptiles and and Johannes Warming became birds. Aristotle and Theophrastus increasingly aware of ecological In the early years of the 20th observed many more interactions processes and laid the foundations century, Joseph Grinnell conducted between animals and their of the science of ecology, even if extensive research into animals’ environment in the 4th century BCE. they didn’t use that word. habitat needs in the western United States. He observed that species Over the next two millennia, Mathematical models had different “niches” within a countless other observations of the It had long been understood that habitat—and that if two species natural world were made, but a deep one of the most basic ecological have approximately the same food understanding of how organisms processes is the struggle for requirements, one will “crowd out” interacted with each other and the survival: for herbivores to find food, the other. Darwin had observed this world around them was hampered predators to find prey, and prey to on his travels aboard HMS Beagle, by the inability to observe very avoid being eaten. Predators do but Grinnell’s axiom developed the small things, those that were active everything they can to hunt and idea further, as did subsequent at night, or those living underwater. eat prey, and the latter do all they research. In 1934, Georgy Gause Additionally, few people with an can to avoid being eaten. In 1910, demonstrated what he called the interest in nature experienced much competitive exclusion principle in

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 43 ECOLOGICAL PROCESSES Roy Anderson and Robert Research published by Robert Sterner and James Elser May demonstrate how Ronald Pulliam, Eric Charnov, pioneer the study of ecological and Graham Pyke expands on stoichiometry—how ratios of epidemics affect animal the optimal foraging theory that different chemicals within population growth rates. living organisms change animals try to gather resources with certain reactions. while wasting as little energy as possible. 1970s 1977 2002 1972 1991 Knut Schmidt-Nielsen Earl Werner publishes publishes How Animals his findings about Work. The book hugely nonconsumptive effects of predators influences the field on prey. of ecophysiology. laboratory projects. As William E. to play, too—as Earl Werner New technology Odum put it in 1959, “the ecological demonstrated 30 years later. His Technological advances—including niche of an organism depends not work revealed the non-consumptive sophisticated chemical sampling only on where it lives, but also on impact of predatory dragonfly larvae techniques, satellites with remote what it does.” on the behavior and physical sensing equipment, and computers development of their tadpole prey. capable of rapidly processing huge From field to lab quantities of data—have opened Laboratory experiments and field Since the mid-20th century, up new areas of study. observations are the main methods many new ideas on ecological of providing data for the study processes have emerged. Work by Ecological stoichiometry, for of ecological processes, but field Robert MacArthur and others on example, studies the flow of energy experiments—in which a local competition between species led to and chemical elements throughout environment is manipulated to test the development of optimal foraging food webs and ecosystems, from the a hypothesis—were not conducted theory, which seeks to explain why molecular level up. Like so many with scientific rigor until Joe animals choose to eat some food ideas in ecology, its origins can be Connell’s work with barnacles items and not others. Mutualistic traced back many years, but only in Scotland. His experiments—the relationships became better took hold with Robert Sterner and results of which were published understood through the research James Elser’s 2003 book Ecological in 1961—were meticulously planned of biologists such as Daniel Janzen. stoichiometry: The biology of and observed, and were repeatable. Robert Paine’s work with starfish elements from molecules to the and mussels also highlighted the biosphere. New techniques such Connell set the “gold standard” concept of keystone species— as this will undoubtedly continue for fieldwork, but experiments in those that have a disproportionate to deepen our understanding of laboratories still have a vital role influence on their ecosystems. processes in ecology. ■

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS LESSONS FROM FOR LIFEOMANTHTEHMEATSICTARLUTGHEGOLREY PREDATOR–PREY EQUATIONS

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РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 46 PREDATOR–PREY EQUATIONS IN CONTEXT Populations of two species, T he predator–prey equations one predator, the are an early example of the KEY FIGURES other prey, interact. application of mathematics Alfred J. Lotka (1880–1949), to biology. Formulated in the 1920s Vito Volterra (1860–1940) The prey has access to by American mathematician Alfred food and its population J. Lotka and Italian mathematician BEFORE growth is exponential. and physicist Vito Volterra, the 1798 British economist When prey animals meet two equations—also known as Thomas Malthus shows that the Lotka–Volterra equations— the rate at which the population a predator, they describe the way in which the changes increases as the size are eaten. population of a predator species of the population grows. and that of its prey fluctuate in Eating prey results relation to each other. 1871 In Lewis Carroll’s novel in more predators. Through the Looking Glass, Lotka proposed the equations the Red Queen tells Alice, More predators in 1910, as a way of understanding “you have to run just to stay results in less the rates of autocatalytic chemical in the same place.” prey, reducing the reactions—chemical processes number of predators. that regulate themselves. In the AFTER following decade, he applied 1973 American biologist Leigh the equations to the population Van Valen proposes the Red dynamics of wild animals. Queen effect, which describes the constant “arms race” In 1926, Vito Volterra arrived between predators and prey. at the same conclusions. He had become interested in the subject 1989 The Arditi–Ginzburg after meeting Italian marine equations offer another model biologist Umberto D’Ancona. of predator–prey dynamics D’Ancona told Volterra how the by including the impact of the percentage of predatory fish ratio between predator and prey. caught in nets in the Adriatic Sea had greatly increased during World War I. This change was clearly linked to the drastic reduction in fishing during the Vito Volterra Born in 1860 in Ancona, Italy, the Volterra refused to swear loyalty son of a Jewish cloth merchant, to Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Vito Volterra grew up in poverty. Mussolini and was dismissed Despite this, in 1883, aged just 23, from the University of Rome. he secured a position as professor Forced to work abroad, he only of mechanics at the University returned to Italy for a short time of Pisa and began a career as before his death in 1940. a mathematician. Further professorships at the universities Key works of Turin and Rome followed. In 1900, Volterra married, fathering 1926 “Fluctuations in the six children, although only four Abundance of a Species survived to adulthood. He was Considered Mathematically,” made a senator of the Kingdom Nature of Italy in 1905 and worked on the 1935 Les associations development of military airships biologiques au point de vue during World War I. In 1931, mathématique

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS ECOLOGICAL PROCESSES 47 See also: Evolution by natural selection 24–31 ■ The selfish gene 38–39 ■ Ecological niches 50–51 ■ Competitive exclusion principle 52–53 ■ Mutualisms 56–59 ■ Keystone species 60–65 ■ Optimal foraging theory 66–67 A cheetah pursues a Thomson’s increases as the population grows. occurring factors. As a result, wild gazelle. The predator–prey equations From this theory, Malthus predicted populations should in theory be are able to model the way populations a catastrophic future for humanity. more or less static, fluctuating only of both species will change in response The number of humans was around the carrying capacity, to the activities of the other. growing much more quickly than assuming the random impacts of the amount of food that could be catastrophic events are ignored. war years, but D’Ancona could not produced by the world’s farmlands. explain why less fishing did not Eventually, Malthus argued, a point However, this relative produce more fish of all kinds in the would be reached when the human equilibrium did not always match nets. Using the same equations as population would succumb to up with observations—as in ❯❯ Lotka, Volterra eventually explained global famine and decline. the fluctuations in both the predator The food species and the prey species. Malthus’s bleak vision did not cannot, therefore, be happen, thanks to technological exterminated by the Population principles advances in agriculture and the predatory species, under At the time Lotka and Volterra development of artificial fertilizers, the conditions to which made their calculations, the science but his population model became our equations refer. of population dynamics was still applicable to species populations in its infancy, having barely moved within ecosystems. Every habitat, Alfred J. Lotka on since the population studies of and the niche occupied by a species British economist Thomas Malthus within its community of organisms, in the late 18th century. According has a carrying capacity—the to Malthus’s theory, a population maximum population that can grows or declines rapidly as long be supported by the resources as the environmental factors for available, such as water, space, survival are constant, and the rate food, and light. Any rise in at which that population changes population above this level is likely to be reduced by naturally

РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА \"What's News\" VK.COM/WSNWS 48 PREDATOR–PREY EQUATIONS Mathematics without no reproduction limits and the species and the predation rate. natural history is sterile, but rate of change in a population For example, oscillations in the is proportional to its size; second, size of an ant population and that natural history without that the prey population—presumed of an anteater are barely noticeable mathematics is muddled. to be a herbivore—is always able because they reproduce at such John Maynard Smith to find enough food to survive. different rates. The oscillations Next, they assumed that the prey in the populations of species that British mathematician population is the predators’ only breed at similar rates, such as the and evolutionist source of nourishment, and that Iberian lynx and rabbit, are much the predators never become full more pronounced. D’Ancona’s account of a sudden and never stop hunting. Finally, increase in the population of they assumed that environmental Nature’s arms race predatory sea fish. One theory conditions, such as weather or The predator–prey equations to explain this discrepancy natural disasters, had no impact revealed that species are locked started from the premise that the on the process. The effect of the together in a never-ending struggle, population of predators is related genetic diversity of the predators swinging from near disaster and to the size of the population of their and prey animals on their ability to extinction to times of abundance food supply, such as prey species. survive was not taken into account. and fertility. In this biological “arms The relationship suggests that race,” the evolutionary pressure when a lot of food is available, there When plotted on a graph, the on the prey species is to escape will be a large predator population. predator population trails the rise predation and survive, so as to have The growing predator population and fall of the prey population, and more offspring. Meanwhile, the should then begin to reduce the is still rising as the prey population predator is under pressure to have amount of prey, which will in starts to decline. This explained a higher predation rate in order turn lead to a drop in the number D’Ancona’s observation of the larger to provide food for more offspring. of predators. The size of both proportion of predators after the However, neither species is populations will rise and fall, but prey population had been allowed superior, responding instead the ratio of predators to prey will to boom by a reduction in fishing. to the adaptations of the other. The remain stable. predator–prey relationship between The relative fluctuations of the even-toed hoofed mammals—such Such a balanced theory was still populations depends on the relative at odds with species observations. reproductive rates of the two Through mathematical modeling, Volterra was able to show that the Predator–prey population cycles average sizes of predator and prey populations do indeed oscillate but KEY The predator and prey the rate at which each population Prey populations rise and fall is growing or declining is always Predator over time in regular cycles. changing and almost never Although the degree to matches the changes experienced which they change varies, by the other population. To the cycle follows a broadly eliminate variables, Volterra made similar pattern. a series of assumptions: first, that the prey and predator species have POPULATION TIME