From: Sabrina Marr (cocochanel@redshift.com)
Date: Tue 06 May 2003 - 00:48:45 GMT
aren't point mutations those undesirable things that "bad" dna have? heh. I
don't think that species would evolve to include point mutations since this
would mean screwing up all of their dna. think more. if a species is both
gray and spotted, when gray is good and spots are bad (since it wouldn't
un-evolve the spots hm?) won't it like, get killed? that's not good. read
selfish gene, by dawkins. best dna book out there.
always, sabrina
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Recchia" <rrecchia@mail.clarityconnect.com>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2003 6:34 AM
Subject: latent mutation
> I'm reading "Darwin's Cathedral" by David Sloan Wilson and I have a
general
> evolution question. Suppose a species initially evolves under
> circumstances where there is an advantage to having a drab grey color to
> provide circumstances. Then suppose circumstances change so that spot
> provide more of an advantage. Over time the species evolves an elaborate
> biochemical mechanism for spots that allows the species to survive
> effectively in this new environment. Next suppose the environment changes
> back so that drab grey is now more effective. Organisms can go back to
> drab without unevolving the entire mechanism for spots. Instead they can
> just have point mutations that disable the spots. Then if the environment
> changes again so that spots are better, instead of re-evolving the whole
> spot system again, all that is necessary is that a few individuals lose
the
> point mutations preventing spots from being expressed. This means that
> spots can reappear much more quickly the second time than they did the
> first time.
>
> So my question is, are there any real examples of this occurring in
> nature? Is there a term that is used to describe this phenomenon?
>
>
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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