Evolution. What is it ?
All organisms that we see in our normal lives or that we know of have gone through the process of evolution and they continue to go through the process. The process of evolution is the result of change in the genetic makeup of a population (due to natural selection) to better suit its habitat and pass on their genetic information. As this happens many populations change into new species. For example as you can see the image above it shows how humans have evolved from apes.
For a more detailed definition:
The definition in dictionary.com is "Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species."
For a more detailed definition:
The definition in dictionary.com is "Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species."
Adaptations
The changes in an organism which could be Behavioural, Physiological, Structural and Morphological these changes occur because in order to better suit them for the environment.
- Behavioural Adaptation - These adaptations consist of how an organism behaves within it's environment. A prime example is flight distance in wolves. In dark/medieval ages when humans started settling in an around wolves there were many dumps in which wolves would feed off of. Wolves that had a short flight distance strayed close to humans and dumps and could eat while wolves with large flight distance would be to afraid to eat and get less and often died. Through time natural selection choose wolves with shorter flight distance and this got passed down through generations and there began an domestication of wolves through which dogs are produced.
- Morphological Adaptation - The adaptions that consist of how an organism can adapt to its environment physically. A prime example of a Morphological adaptation is the domestication of wolves to dogs. When humans settled around wolves they slowly got used to them, wolves did not have to hunt for their meals and would get food from humans. As this happened the killer teeth the wolves had were not needed and so these teeth got smaller, this is only one of the Morphological adaptation the wolf went through out of many.
- Physiological Adaptations - The adaptations consist of how an organism can adapt to it environment internally. A prime example of physiological Adaptation is the domestication of wolves in the artic. When humans started to use wolves to push heavy loads and travel long distances on ice and snow their feet adapted to the cold and were able to drop in temperature almost to 0 but not directly at 0.