Evolution in a Test Tube

Groundbreaking research published in Current Biology concludes that evolution is not random as predicted by neo-Darwinian evolution theory.  Rather, the scientisists found evolution to be deterministic and orderly.  They formed these conclusions after studying  50 species of earthworms using current methodologies of molecualar biology.

Evolution is Deterministic, and Not Random

 "Since random development would not create such unifying trends, we concluded that the observed development was deterministic, not random," said Professor Benjamin Podbilewicz from the Technion Faculty of Biology.

Major Break from Classical Neo-Darwin Theory

This is a major break showing that past theories of neo-Darwin evolution were incorrect regarding the proposition that random mutation is the driving mechanism for the evolution from simpler to more complex oganisms.

Jeffrey Dach MD
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References:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119123929.htm

Evolution Is Deterministic, Not Random, Biologists Conclude From Multi-species Study. ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2007) — A multi-national team of biologists has concluded that developmental evolution is deterministic and orderly, rather than random, based on a study of different species of roundworms.

The researchers were interested in how development evolves in organs which themselves do not change. To do so, they examined the vulva -- the female's copulatory and egg-laying organ -- in nearly 50 species of roundworms. Because the vulva does not significantly change across species, one might predict that there would be little variation in vulva development. However, the researchers found an astonishing amount of developmental variation. They then reasoned that this variation, since it did not affect the final adult vulva, should have evolved in a stochastic, or random, fashion.

In executing the study, the research team analyzed more than 40 characteristics of vulva development, including cell death, cell division patterns, and related aspects of gonad development. They plotted the evolution of these traits on a new phylogenetic tree, which illustrates how species are related to one another and provides a map as to how evolutionary changes are occurring.

Their results showed an even greater number of evolutionary changes in vulva development than the researchers had expected. In addition, they found that evolutionary changes among these species were unidirectional in nearly all instances.

For example, they concluded that the number of cell divisions needed in vulva development declined over time -- instead of randomly increasing and decreasing. In addition, the team noted that the number of rings used to form the vulva consistently declined during the evolutionary process. These results demonstrate that, even where we might expect evolution to be random, it is not.

The leading author is Karin Kiontke, a post-doctoral fellow in New York University's Department of Biology. The research team included NYU Biology Professor David Fitch as well as researchers from the University of Paris, the Israel Institute of Technology, and the Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Germany. The findings are reported in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology.

http://www.physorg.com/news114700358.html

Evolution is deterministic, not random, biologists conclude from multi-species study. November 19th, 2007 in General Science / Biology
A multi-national team of biologists has concluded that developmental evolution is deterministic and orderly, rather than random, based on a study of different species of roundworms. The findings are reported in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology.

Now, the findings of an international team of biologists demonstrate that evolution is not a random process, but rather occurs through the natural selection of successful traits. The collaborative study by researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Israel, the U.S, France and Germany is published in the November 2007 issue of Current Biology (vol. 17, pp. 1925-1937).

To settle the question about whether evolution is deterministic or random, the researchers used various tools - including DNA strand analysis and electronic microscopy - to study female sexual organ development in 51 species of nematode, a type of worm commonly used to better understand evolutionary processes.

When the researchers measured changes in 40 defined characteristics of the nematodes' sexual organs (including cell division patterns and the formation of specific cells), they found that most were uniform in direction, with the main mechanism for the development favoring a natural selection of successful traits, the researchers said.

"Since random development would not create such unifying trends, we concluded that the observed development was deterministic, not random," said Professor Benjamin Podbilewicz from the Technion Faculty of Biology.

The findings, which constitute a significant milestone in establishing and reaffirming the mechanism of Darwin's theory, will help in understanding how evolution works in all living creatures, said Podbilewicz.

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(07)02193-8

Current Biology, Volume 17, Issue 22, 1925-1937, 20 November 2007

Trends, Stasis, and Drift in the Evolution of Nematode Vulva Development
Karin Kiontke1,,,Antoine Barrière2,Irina Kolotuev3,Benjamin Podbilewicz3,Ralf Sommer4,David H.A. Fitch1andMarie-Anne Félix2

1 Department of Biology, New York University, Main Building, Room 1009, 100 Washington Square East, New York, New York 10003
2 Institut Jacques Monod, CNRS  Universities of Paris 6 and 7, Tour 43, 2 pl. Jussieu, 75251 Paris cedex 05, France
3 Department of Biology, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 32000, Israel
4 Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Spemannstrae 35, D-72076 Tübingen, Germany

Corresponding author

Summary
A surprising amount of developmental variation has been observed for otherwise highly conserved features, a phenomenon known as developmental system drift. Either stochastic processes (e.g., drift and absence of selection-independent constraints) or deterministic processes (e.g., selection or constraints) could be the predominate mechanism for the evolution of such variation. We tested whether evolutionary patterns of change were unbiased or biased, as predicted by the stochastic or deterministic hypotheses, respectively. As a model, we used the nematode vulva, a highly conserved, essential organ, the development of which has been intensively studied in the model systems Caenorhabditis elegans and Pristionchus pacificus.For 51 rhabditid species, we analyzed more than 40 characteristics of vulva development, including cell fates, fate induction, cell competence, division patterns, morphogenesis, and related aspects of gonad development. We then defined individual characters and plotted their evolution on a phylogeny inferred for 65 species from three nuclear gene sequences. This taxon-dense phylogeny provides for the first timea highlyresolved picture of rhabditid evolution and allows the reconstruction of the number and directionality of changes in the vulva development characters. We found an astonishing amount of variation and an even larger number of evolutionary changes, suggesting a high degree of homoplasy (convergences and reversals). Surprisingly, only two characters showed unbiased evolution. Evolution of all other characters was biased.We propose that developmental evolution is primarily governed by selection and/or selection-independent constraints, not stochastic processes such as drift in unconstrained phenotypic space.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIC1aRandom.shtml
The mechanisms of evolution—like natural selection and genetic drift—work with the random variation generated by mutation.