• Question: how does evolution take place

    Asked by anon-240473 to Tom, Rebecca, Emily, Ben on 19 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Ben Cropper

      Ben Cropper answered on 19 Mar 2020: last edited 19 Mar 2020 4:02 pm

      You might get a better answer from Tom (a biologist), but I can give you a short answer:
      There are random differences in a group of creatures (that are the same species). Some of those differences help those creatures to have children, some make it more difficult. The children have characteristics which are passed down from the parents. The differences that are helpful are more likely to passed down. Over time, the group of creatures becomes different to the beginning.
      There might be more than one way of being good at having children. You might get groups of creatures splitting off from the main group because that is better for them. As a result of that, you get more than one species, which can then change again afterwards.

    • Photo: Tom Dally

      Tom Dally answered on 20 Mar 2020: last edited 20 Mar 2020 12:12 pm

      Nope, Ben’s explanation is a good one! We all have mutations in our DNA – sometimes these mutations are good and enable us to better survive our environment, giving us a better chance of reproducing and passing these “good” mutations on to our offspring. As these mutations add up, a sub-set of animals from a population may become different enough to be labelled a new species – branching off from the original species. This is what we mean by “survival of the fittest” – we don’t mean physical fitness, we mean reproductive fitness – who can survive best to pass on their genes.

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