On the Origin of Synthetic Species
In this project, we read Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, and alongside it, looked at modern genetic advancements. In the end of the project, our team wrote a book on our findings, that eventually got published at UC Press. Each group researched deeply into a different thing related to genetics (although each group did each lab, some worked on certain labs in more detail). We did the Amgen-Wallace Biotech Labs, Avida-ED, collaborated with the J. Craig Venter Institute to participate in a Biology infographic competition, and looked at CRISPR, the gene editing software. Personally, I was in the Avida-ED group, so I focused on those labs, but I was also the lead editor of the book, so I read and critiqued every student's two page sections. Here is my section.
Species not only evolve based on a struggle for existence with those of their own species, they also have a struggle for dominance over other species. For instance, in Southern California, there are great numbers of invasive eucalyptus trees. Eucalyptus trees have evolved to, put bluntly, kill everything around it, to make its own life more viable. It does this by taking all of the water out of the soil, having dense shade to block sunlight to plants, and dropping tons of leaves, so that no small plant species can survive.
This struggle for existence can also lead to more symbiotic relationships, where both species benefit from the other’s existence. For example, red clover (a flower) can strongly influence stray cat populations if the right conditions are met.
In some parts of England, red clover is very common. Bumblebees are also common, and are used to pollinate the red clover. Bees need mice to regulate their species populations (and mice need to eat bees), so there are also mice in this area. It follows, then, that there are a lot of stray cats in the area, to regulate the mice’s populations. All of these species work together to keep the ecosystem of that area in balance. If just one of these species, say, mice, were to disappear from the area, everything would be thrown off balance. One species (bees, in this case) might skyrocket, because there were no longer any checks on its population growth, and another (cats) might plummet, due to a lack of food. This imbalance would also make the all of the other species in the area that were dependent on mice (like the farther removed red clover, or even things outside of this equation, like snakes, or seed-bearing plants) change their numbers. This shock wave could also be felt by those dependent on secondhand changes in the species, like the aforementioned cats, bees, snakes, red clover, etc. And this would happen for any species you removed from any area, and the reverse would happen if a species’ numbers suddenly and inexplicably went up. In the end, this type of symbiotic relationship is vital to ecosystems.
This is further proven by the Avida Labs that we did as a class. In Avida Lab 7, groups of three to four students were asked to create their own labs based on what they were curious about from the previous labs. One of the groups made a lab looking at survival of the fittest, another way of saying natural selection with multiple species. They raised four organisms in Avida, looking for types of functions made to consume each type of easy and moderate sugars. Once the Not+ function arose (the function giving the species the ability to consume notose, the simplest sugar), they froze the organism, and repeated with the three other sugars. Once they had all four organisms, they put them all into one petri dish, and let the program run for a certain number of generations. Whichever organisms was the most populous “won” the round. They did this over and over, with different mutation rates for each trial. They used 0%, 2%, 5%, and 10%. This was to show how the results would differ in a world with no variation, one with a similar mutation rate to ours, one with a slightly higher mutation rate than ours, and one with a relatively huge chance for mutation.
Overwhelmingly, the more complex sugars (ornose and andose) succeeded, especially with lower mutation rates. This is because the complex organisms didn’t need to evolve as much, so with a lower mutation rate, they were at an advantage. With a higher chance for mutation, the simple-sugar organisms were able to evolve up to the level of the complex ones easily, while the complex organisms took longer to get better functions.
This connects to the struggle for existence with multiple species because it is a relatively simple instance of it. Higher level, more complex, organisms will almost always do better when put in an environment with a simpler organism. Especially when both organisms eat the same food - one will generally steal it all.
Overall, natural selection with multiple species causes a lot of the evolution that takes place in large ecosystems, because species are interdependent, and can cause another species to thrive, or dwindle to extinction. Species can change everyone else’s evolution through their own behaviors (environmental factors can also cause this).
This struggle for existence can also lead to more symbiotic relationships, where both species benefit from the other’s existence. For example, red clover (a flower) can strongly influence stray cat populations if the right conditions are met.
In some parts of England, red clover is very common. Bumblebees are also common, and are used to pollinate the red clover. Bees need mice to regulate their species populations (and mice need to eat bees), so there are also mice in this area. It follows, then, that there are a lot of stray cats in the area, to regulate the mice’s populations. All of these species work together to keep the ecosystem of that area in balance. If just one of these species, say, mice, were to disappear from the area, everything would be thrown off balance. One species (bees, in this case) might skyrocket, because there were no longer any checks on its population growth, and another (cats) might plummet, due to a lack of food. This imbalance would also make the all of the other species in the area that were dependent on mice (like the farther removed red clover, or even things outside of this equation, like snakes, or seed-bearing plants) change their numbers. This shock wave could also be felt by those dependent on secondhand changes in the species, like the aforementioned cats, bees, snakes, red clover, etc. And this would happen for any species you removed from any area, and the reverse would happen if a species’ numbers suddenly and inexplicably went up. In the end, this type of symbiotic relationship is vital to ecosystems.
This is further proven by the Avida Labs that we did as a class. In Avida Lab 7, groups of three to four students were asked to create their own labs based on what they were curious about from the previous labs. One of the groups made a lab looking at survival of the fittest, another way of saying natural selection with multiple species. They raised four organisms in Avida, looking for types of functions made to consume each type of easy and moderate sugars. Once the Not+ function arose (the function giving the species the ability to consume notose, the simplest sugar), they froze the organism, and repeated with the three other sugars. Once they had all four organisms, they put them all into one petri dish, and let the program run for a certain number of generations. Whichever organisms was the most populous “won” the round. They did this over and over, with different mutation rates for each trial. They used 0%, 2%, 5%, and 10%. This was to show how the results would differ in a world with no variation, one with a similar mutation rate to ours, one with a slightly higher mutation rate than ours, and one with a relatively huge chance for mutation.
Overwhelmingly, the more complex sugars (ornose and andose) succeeded, especially with lower mutation rates. This is because the complex organisms didn’t need to evolve as much, so with a lower mutation rate, they were at an advantage. With a higher chance for mutation, the simple-sugar organisms were able to evolve up to the level of the complex ones easily, while the complex organisms took longer to get better functions.
This connects to the struggle for existence with multiple species because it is a relatively simple instance of it. Higher level, more complex, organisms will almost always do better when put in an environment with a simpler organism. Especially when both organisms eat the same food - one will generally steal it all.
Overall, natural selection with multiple species causes a lot of the evolution that takes place in large ecosystems, because species are interdependent, and can cause another species to thrive, or dwindle to extinction. Species can change everyone else’s evolution through their own behaviors (environmental factors can also cause this).