Author Topic: Convergent Evolution  (Read 803 times)

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Convergent Evolution
« on: July 06, 2015, 11:11:41 PM »
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Convergent evolution is the process by which unrelated or distantly related organisms evolve similar body forms, coloration, organs, and adaptations. Natural selection can result in evolutionary convergence under several different circumstances. Species can converge in sympatry, as in mimicry complexes among insects, especially butterflies (coral snakes and their mimics constitute another well-known example). Mimicry evolves after one species, the 'model' has become aposematic (warningly colored) because it is toxic or poisonous and therefore protected (Wickler 1968). Two distinct kinds of mimicry are recognized, Batesian and Müllerian. In Batesian mimicry, the mimic is palatable or unprotected, but gains from being mistaken for the model, which is unpalatable or protected. Two protected model species can also converge because of the advantage of being mistaken for each other (Müllerian mimicry).




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Re: Convergent Evolution
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2015, 11:12:31 PM »
Mimicry is an interesting consequence of warning coloration that nicely demonstrates the power of natural selection. An organism that commonly occurs in a community along with a poisonous or distasteful species can benefit from a resemblance to the warningly colored species, even though the 'mimic' itself is nonpoisonous and/or quite palatable. Because predators that have experienced contacts with the model species, and have learned to avoid it, mistake the mimic species for the model and avoid it as well. Such false warning coloration is termed Batesian mimicry after its discoverer.




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Re: Convergent Evolution
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2015, 11:13:04 PM »
Many species of harmless snakes mimic poisonous snakes (Greene and McDiarmid 1981); in Central America, some harmless snakes are so similar to poisonous coral snakes that only an expert can distinguish the mimic from the 'model.' A few experts have even died as a result of a superficial misidentifications. Similarly, certain harmless flies and clearwing moths mimic bees and wasps, and palatable species of butterflies mimic distasteful species. Batesian mimicry is disadvantageous to the model species because some predators will encounter palatable or harmless mimics and thereby take longer to learn to avoid the model. The greater the proportion of mimics to models, the longer is the time required for predator learning and the greater the number of model casualties. In fact, if mimics became more abundant than models, predators might not learn to avoid the prey item at all but might actively search out model and mimic alike. For this reason Batesian mimics are usually much less abundant than their models; also, mimics of this sort are frequently polymorphic (often only females are mimics) and mimic several different model species.

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Re: Convergent Evolution
« Reply #3 on: July 07, 2015, 12:58:45 AM »



Müllerian mimicry is different, and occurs when two species, both distasteful or dangerous, mimic one another. Both bees and wasps, for example, are usually banded with yellows and blacks. Because potential predators encounter several species of Müllerian mimics more frequently than just a single species, they learn to avoid them faster, and the relationship is actually beneficial to both prey species. The resemblance need not be as precise as it must be under Batesian mimicry because neither species actually deceives the predator; rather, each only reminds the predator of its dangerous or distasteful properties. Müllerian mimicry is beneficial to all parties including the predator; mimics can be equally common and are rarely polymorphic.

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Re: Convergent Evolution
« Reply #4 on: July 07, 2015, 12:59:18 AM »
Molecules can evolve convergently, especially when parasites mimic molecular messages that signal 'self' to immune responses of hosts, which allows the parasite to elude its host's defenses. Molecular convergence could also take place when a particular metabolic function requires similar or identical molecular structure (Doolittle 1994). Some gene circuits and gene networks appear to have undergone convergent evolution by single-gene duplications in higher eukaryotes (Amoutzias et al. 2004, Conant and Wagner 2003). Convergence in DNA nucleotide sequences would lead to erroneous phylogenetic conclusions, which would be problematical for molecular systematic studies.

Evolutionary convergence involving unrelated organisms living in similar environments but in different places (allopatry) can also occur in another way. This usually takes place in relatively simple communities in which biotic interactions are highly predictable and the resulting number of different ways of exploiting the environment are limited. Similar environments pose similar challenges to survival and reproduction, and those traits that enhance Darwinian fitness are selected for in each environment. Such organisms that fill similar ecological roles in different, independently-evolved, biotas are termed "ecological equivalents" (Grinnell 1924, Hubbell 2006). Examples are legion.

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