Through feedback loop, species' evolution found to drive environmental changes
The Hindu
A new research in Bahamas found that evolutionary change in leg length of a lizards species, in turn, fed back into the environment by making ecological changes
A new research in the small islands of Bahamas has found that evolutionary change in leg length of a lizards species, in turn, fed back into the environment by making ecological changes to aspects like vegetation growth and spider populations.
A classic example of how environmental change drives species evolution is that of the textbook evolutionary story of peppered moths.
According to the story, during the Industrial Evolution, as the coal smoke darkened tree barks near England's cities, black-bodied moths, being less conspicuous targets for predators, thrived and became dominant. The numbers of white-bodied ones, on the other hand, quickly reduced.
But could a feedback loop exist in nature through which the reverse process happens? Could species evolution drive ecological change?
This study from the University of Rhode Island, US, said that it provided evidence for this, which scientists have begun thinking about in recent years.
"We really need to understand how those dynamics work so we can make predictions about how populations are going to persist, and what sort of ecological changes might result," said Jason Kolbe, a professor of biological sciences and one of the study's senior authors.
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