Outline of evolution

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to evolution:

A diagram showing the relationships among various groups of organisms

In biology, evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological organisms over generations due to natural selection, mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift. Also known as descent with modification. Over time these evolutionary processes lead to formation of new species (speciation), changes within lineages (anagenesis), and loss of species (extinction). "Evolution" is also another name for evolutionary biology, the subfield of biology concerned with studying evolutionary processes that produced the diversity of life on Earth.

Fundamentals about evolution

Introduction

Basic principles

  • Macroevolution – Evolution on a scale at or above the level of species
    • Speciation – Evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species
      • Natural speciation
      • Artificial speciation
      • Hybrid speciation – Form of speciation involving hybridization between two different species
    • Despeciation – Loss of a species of animal due to its combining with another species
    • Anagenesis – Gradual evolutionary change in a species without splitting
    • Extinction – Termination of a taxon by the death of its last member
  • Microevolution – Change in allele frequencies that occurs over time within a population
    • Artificial selection – Breeding used to develop desired characteristics
    • Natural selection – Mechanism of evolution by differential survival and reproduction of individuals
      • Sexual selection – Mode of natural selection involving the choosing of and competition for mates
    • Mutation – Alteration in the nucleotide sequence of a genome
    • Gene flow – Transfer of genetic variation from one population to another
    • Genetic drift – Concept in genetics

Subfields

History

Evolutionary theory and modelling

See also Basic principles (above)

Population genetics

  • Population genetics – Subfield of genetics
  • Process
    • Mutation – Alteration in the nucleotide sequence of a genome
    • Selection – Mechanism of evolution by differential survival and reproduction of individuals
      • Natural selection – Mechanism of evolution by differential survival and reproduction of individuals
        • Sexual selection – Mode of natural selection involving the choosing of and competition for mates
      • Artificial selection – Breeding used to develop desired characteristics
      • Ecological selection – Natural selection without sexual selection
    • Gene flow – Transfer of genetic variation from one population to another
    • Genetic drift – Concept in genetics
  • Variation
    • Genetic variation – Difference in DNA among individuals or populations
      • Genetic diversity – Total number of genetic characteristics in a species
      • Gene frequency – The relative frequency of a variant of a gene at a particular locus in a population
      • Polymorphism (biology) – Occurrence of two or more clearly different morphs or forms in the population of a species
  • Key concepts
  • Effects of selection
  • Related topics

Evolutionary phenomena

  • Adaptation – Process that fits organisms to their environment
  • Adaptive radiation – A process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species
  • Coevolution – Two or more species influencing each other's evolution
  • Concerted evolution
  • Convergent evolution – Independent evolution of similar features
  • Divergent evolution – Accumulation of differences between closely related species populations, leading to speciation
    • Divergent evolution in animals – Accumulation of differences between closely related species populations, leading to speciation
  • Evolution of ageing – Study of the evolutionary development of ageing processes
  • Evolution of biological complexity – Tendency for maximum complexity to increase over time, though without any overall direction
  • Evolution of multicellularity – The development of organisms that consists of more than one cell from unicellular ancestors
  • Evolution of photosynthesis – Origin and subsequent evolution of the process by which light energy is used to synthesize sugars
  • Evolution of sexual reproduction – How sexually reproducing multicellular organisms could have evolved from a common ancestor species
  • Evolutionary arms race – Competition of sets of genes, traits, or species, that develop adaptations against each other
  • Evolutionary capacitance – Evolutionary biology hypothesis
  • Evolutionary fauna
  • Evolutionary pressure – Any cause that reduces reproductive success in a proportion of a population
  • Evolutionary radiation – Increase in taxonomic diversity or morphological disparity
  • Evolutionary trap – Cases in which an evolved, and presumably adaptive, trait has suddenly become maladaptive
  • Evolvability – Capacity of a system for adaptive evolution
  • Exaptation – Function of trait, shifted by evolution
  • Extinction – Termination of a taxon by the death of its last member
  • Fitness (biology) – Expected reproductive success
    • Inclusive fitness – Measure of evolutionary success based on the number of offspring the individual supports
    • Reproductive success – Passing of genes on to the next generation in a way that they too can pass on those genes
  • Genetic recombination – Production of offspring with combinations of traits that differ from those found in either parent
  • Horizontal gene transfer in evolution – Evolutionary consequences of transfer of genetic material between organisms of different taxa
  • Human evolution (origins of society and culture) – Transition of human species to anthropologically modern behavior
  • Inversion (evolutionary biology) – Hypothesis in developmental biology
  • Mosaic evolution – Evolution of characters at various rates both within and between species
  • Parallel evolution – Similar evolution in distinct species
  • Quantum evolution – Evolution where transitional forms are particularly unstable and do not last long
  • Recurrent evolution – The repeated evolution of a particular character
  • Robustness (evolution) – Persistence of a biological trait under uncertain conditions
  • Speciation – Evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species

Modelling

  • Emergent evolution – Evolutionary biology
  • Epic of evolution – Evolutionary narrative that blends views
  • Evolution window – Narrow band of mutation step size that is conducive to significant evolutionary progress
  • Evolutionary dynamics – Study of mathematical principles in evolutionary biology
  • Evolutionary game theory – Application of game theory to evolving populations in biology
  • Evolutionary graph theory – Approach to studying how topology affects evolution of a population
  • Evolutionary invasion analysis – Mathematical modeling of phenotypic evolution
  • Largest-scale trends in evolution – Limits of increased complexity over time

Taxonomy, systematics, and phylogeny

Fundamentals

Basic concepts of phylogenetics

  • Phylogenetic tree – Branching diagram of evolutionary relationships between organisms
  • Phylogenetic network – Graph used to visualize evolutionary relationships, including reticulation events
  • Long branch attraction – Systematic error in phylogenetics
  • Clade – Group of a common ancestor and all descendants
  • Grade – Non-monophyletic grouping of organisms united by morphological or physiological characteristics
  • Ghost lineage – Phylogenetic lineage that is inferred to exist but has no fossil record

Inference methods

Current topics

  • PhyloCode, also known as International Code of Phylogenetic Nomenclature – Proposed code of nomenclature for clades
  • DNA barcoding – Method of species identification using a short section of DNA
  • Molecular phylogenetics – Branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences
  • Phylogenetic comparative methods – Use of information on the historical relationships of lineages to test evolutionary hypotheses
  • Phylogenetic network – Graph used to visualize evolutionary relationships, including reticulation events
  • Phylogenetic niche conservatism – Tendency of lineage to retain ancestral traits
  • List of phylogenetics software – Compilation of software used to produce phylogenetic trees
  • Phylogenomics – Intersection of the fields of evolution and genomics
  • Phylogeography – Field of study
  • DNA phylogeny

Group Traits

  • Symplesiomorphy – An ancestral character or trait state shared by two or more taxa
  • Apomorphy – Two concepts on heritable traits
  • Synapomorphy – Two concepts on heritable traits
  • Autapomorphy – Distinctive feature, known as a derived trait, that is unique to a given taxon

Group Types

  • Monophyly – Property of a group of including all taxa descendant from a common ancestral species
  • Paraphyly – Type of taxonomic group
  • Polyphyly – Property of a group not united by common ancestry

Evolution of biodiversity

Origin and evolutionary history of life

Evolution of tetrapods

Evolution of other animals

Evolution of plants

Evolution of other taxa

Evolution of cells, organs, and systems

Evolution of molecules and genes

Evolution of behaviour

  • Co-operation (evolution) – Evolutionary process where groups of organisms work or act together for common or mutual benefits
  • Evolution of biparental care in tropical frogs – The evolution of the behaviour in frogs in which both the mother and father raise their offspring
  • Evolution of emotion – Study of the evolution of emotions
  • Evolution of empathy – Capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing
  • Evolution of eusociality – Origins of cooperative brood care
  • Monogamy in animals – Natural history of mating systems in which species pair bond to raise offspring
  • Reciprocal altruism – Form of behaviour between organisms
  • Reciprocity (evolution) – Mechanism favouring cooperative traits

Evolution of other processes

Applications in other disciplines

Evolutionary issues

Controversy about evolution

Religious and philosophical views of evolution

Influence of evolutionary theory

Publications and organizations concerning evolution

Books

Journals

  • Evolution – Monthly journal in the science of evolutionary biology
  • Evolutionary Anthropology – Bimonthly review journal
  • Evolutionary Bioinformatics – Peer-reviewed scientific journal focusing on computational biology in the study of evolution
  • Evolutionary Psychology – Peer-reviewed open access academic journal
  • Journal of Evolutionary Biology – Bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal
  • Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research – Quarterly, peer reviewed, scientific journal
  • Trends in Ecology & Evolution (TREE) – Series of review journals

Organizations

  • European Society for Evolutionary Biology – Organisation to support the study of organic evolution
  • Society for the Study of Evolution – Professional organization of evolutionary biologists
  • Evolutionary psychology research groups and centers
  • I. M. Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry – Research facility in Saint Petersburg, Russia
  • Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology – Research institute based in Leipzig, Germany
  • Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology – Research institute located in Plön, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.
  • National Evolutionary Synthesis Center – Scientific research center in Durham, North Carolina
  • Systematic and Evolutionary Biogeography Association – international biogeographical community
  • Evolutionary Informatics Lab – American engineer and intelligent design advocate (born 1950)

Evolution scholars and researchers

  • List of evolutionary psychologists
  • List of members of the National Academy of Sciences (Evolutionary biology)

Prominent evolutionary biologists

See also

  • Outline of biology – Outline of subdisciplines within biology
  • Biogeography – Study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time
  • Conscious evolution – Hypothetical ability of the human species to choose what they will become
  • Ecology and Evolutionary Biology – Interdisciplinary field of study
  • Effective evolutionary time – Hypothesis offering a causal explanation of diversity gradients
  • Evolutionary acquisition of neural topologies – Method that evolves both the topology and weights of artificial neural networks
  • Evolutionary anachronism – Attributes of living species that arose due to coevolution with other now-extinct species
  • Evolutionary approaches to depression
  • Evolutionary argument against naturalism – Philosophical argument
  • Evolutionary art – Art generated by an iterated process
    • Evolutionary music – Audio counterpart to evolutionary art
  • Evolutionary baggage – Currently disadvantageous part of the genome
  • Evolutionary Humanism – Life stance that embraces human reason, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism
  • Evolutionary informatics – Pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God
  • Evolutionary landscape – Metaphor used to visualize the processes of evolution
  • Evolutionary Principle
  • Extinction – Termination of a taxon by the death of its last member
  • MEGA, Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis – Software for statistical analysis of molecular evolution
  • Sloshing bucket model of evolution – Theory in evolutionary biology
  • Spandrel (biology) – Evolutionary byproduct of some other characteristic
  • Speculative evolution – Science fiction genre exploring hypothetical scenarios in the evolution of life
  • Transitional fossil – Type of fossilized remains
General information
  • Evolution on In Our Time at the BBC
  • "Evolution". New Scientist. Retrieved May 30, 2011.
  • "Evolution Resources from the National Academies". U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved May 30, 2011.
  • "Understanding Evolution: your one-stop resource for information on Evolution". University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved May 30, 2011.
  • "Evolution of Evolution – 150 Years of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species"". National Science Foundation. Retrieved May 30, 2011.
  • Human Timeline (Interactive)Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History (August 2016).
Experiments concerning the process of biological evolution
Online lectures
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.