Some of you may already have seen this (for example, PZ has mentioned it), but Nature has put together a short PDF document that gives fifteen lines of "evidence for evolution by natural selection" [here]. Here's the list (stolen from PZ):
- The discovery of Indohyus, an ancestor to whales.
- The discovery of Tiktaalik, an ancestor to tetrapods.
- The origin of feathers revealed in creatures like Epidexipteryx.
- The evolution of patterning mechanisms in teeth.
- he developmental and evolutionary origin of the vertebrate skeleton.
- Speciation driven indirectly by selection in sticklebacks.
- Selection for longer-legged lizards in Caribbean island populations.
- A co-evolutionary arms race between Daphnia and its parasites.
- Non-random dispersal and gene flow in populations of great tits.
- Maintenance of polymorphisms in populations of guppies.
- Contingency in the evolution of pharyngeal jaws in the moray.
- Developmental genes that regulate the shape of beaks in Darwin's finches.
- Evolution of regulatory genes that specify wing spots in Drosophila.
- Evolution of toxin resistance.
- The concept of evolutionary capacitance: the idea that environmental stress can expose hidden variations that are then subject to selection.
Take a look at the original document (and PZ's linked postings above). You can also actually download the original articles via the PDF.
I'd like to point out, however, that some of the "gems" don't actually provide much evidence for natural selection as a mechanism for evolution. They do instead offer strong evidence for the fact of evolution and the pathway through which organisms have traveled over time.
Life Science
Comments
Fantastic! Remember I was asking you about an article just like this, not too long ago? Woo-hoo! I'm definitely going to use this in my classes.
Roberta
Posted by: Roberta Millstein | January 3, 2009 6:17 PM
I'd forgotten ...
Glad it works though.
Posted by: John Lynch | January 3, 2009 6:27 PM
Well, thanks for posting it. Glad to see you blogging again.
Posted by: Roberta Millstein | January 3, 2009 7:50 PM
Indohyus was not "an ancestor to whales" - for one thing it was roughly contemporary with archaeocetes such as Rodhocetus.
Posted by: Cameron | January 3, 2009 11:02 PM