Student Evolution Blog

 The most common misconception I have heard about and believed growing up, which is why this topic stuck out to me when I was researching, is that humans have evolved from monkeys. It is so simple, there was no reason to question it! However, an article explained it very well by stating that humans did not evolve from monkeys but shared a common ancestor billions of years ago, which is why we have similar features. The ancestor is extinct now, but our ancestry line split apart from the monkeys, probably through some genetic variation or isolation, which led to the different evolutionary characteristics. The author states that this relationship is similar to our distant cousin. We have a common ancestor of many years ago, but we are not alive today because of our distant cousin. 

 The question that interested me the most from the reading in "The Big Issues" was "are there trends in evolution, and if so, what processes generate them?" A trend in evolution occurs whenever there is a continuous development, not a random fluctuation, in the genotypic or phenotypic characteristics in a species. There are many different types of trends, such as an increase in the organism's speed or a decrease in body size, that can be seen throughout evolution. However, the processes that generate these trends is not always known. For example, the trends can begin in a species because they cause greater attraction by the opposite sex, increase survival rates, or aid in food consumption, but most of the time the trend can cause multiple benefits to the organism, so the main cause to begin this change is unknown.  An example of this is seen in the image below. The trend is that researchers discover that this species of bird begins to lose its color over time. T...

 My name is Abigail Decker, but most people call me Abby. I attend the OSU campus in Stillwater, OK and this is my senior year of college. I am studying biology, and I plan on attending a physician assistant program once completing my bachelor's degree. I have learned a lot from this week's opening material. One specific example that interested me was how long it took for photosynthesis to occur and oxygen to be present in earth's atmosphere. Even though earth is 4.5 billion years old, photosynthesis did not occur until 3.5 billion years ago, and 2.3 billion years ago oxygen finally started building up in the atmosphere.