Micro and Macro Evolution Notes
1. A lot of people have very different and mixed ideas about Darwin’s theory of evolution. And when brought up in a conversation, the atmosphere can get very heated in many cases. However, we need not get frustrated about the theory of evolution, the thing that we need to do is to educate ourselves, and learn more about what this theory really implies, and try better to understand what it really means to us. Basically, evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over a large amount of time. These changes are put into two different groups or classifications, microevolution, and macroevolution.
Microevolution is the type of evolution that we have actually observed, and can observe because it does not require nearly as much time as does macroevolution. Microevolution is basically evolutionary change within a species or small group of organisms, over a short period. These changes occur because of changes in the environment, changes in the types of food that an organism has to eat, or even geological changes in the environment of which an organism lives, these changes are usually so that an organism can better survive in its given environment and circumstances.
2. One of my favorite examples is the example of the salamanders that split up in the valley of California. Although this example also describes macroevolution, I think it is a great example of how changes in an environment can lead to microevolution as well. A group of salamanders was migrating southward, and came upon a “fork in the road” and a certain group went to the west of the valley and the other group went to the right of the valley. As we can imagine, there would be slightly different conditions of living on the two separate sides of the great valley and mountain ranges that separated these two groups of salamanders.
Over a relatively short amount of time, the two groups of salamanders had both experienced microevolution, and had both changed enough
Microevolution is the type of evolution that we have actually observed, and can observe because it does not require nearly as much time as does macroevolution. Microevolution is basically evolutionary change within a species or small group of organisms, over a short period. These changes occur because of changes in the environment, changes in the types of food that an organism has to eat, or even geological changes in the environment of which an organism lives, these changes are usually so that an organism can better survive in its given environment and circumstances.
2. One of my favorite examples is the example of the salamanders that split up in the valley of California. Although this example also describes macroevolution, I think it is a great example of how changes in an environment can lead to microevolution as well. A group of salamanders was migrating southward, and came upon a “fork in the road” and a certain group went to the west of the valley and the other group went to the right of the valley. As we can imagine, there would be slightly different conditions of living on the two separate sides of the great valley and mountain ranges that separated these two groups of salamanders.
Over a relatively short amount of time, the two groups of salamanders had both experienced microevolution, and had both changed enough