Acquired characteristics - had no knowledge of inheritance?
Evolution: difference btw acquired vs adaptation
- Thread starter yoh95
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Acquired characteristics aren't a real thing, they were a biological misconception - the belief that you could pass down body features acquired during a lifetime (e.g. if you exercise and become muscular, your child would be more muscular as a result). We now know that only genetic material is passed down to offspring, making this obsolete.
Adaptations are inherited traits that increase fitness. An adaptation isn't acquired during the course of one's lifetime, it's genetically selected for. They are essentially genetically favorable traits.
Adaptations are inherited traits that increase fitness. An adaptation isn't acquired during the course of one's lifetime, it's genetically selected for. They are essentially genetically favorable traits.
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Thanks that explains very well! Also, is acquired during a course of one's lifetime not related to how one is nurtured? If a set of population decides to eat healthy/exercise/stay in best shape, couldn't that eventually be inherited to future generations, therefore be an acquired trait? Isn't this what evolution is about in a broader sense?
Also if that never actually happens, how can adaptation be explained? No matter how much living creatures try their best to be genetically favorable in a population/their environment, they cannot change their genetic material to have this advantage..?
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No, even if a population decided to eat healthy and exercise, none of that by itself would be inherited by future generations - it's not affecting the genetic material that's passed on. Evolution in a broader sense is that natural selection can cause more favorable genes to become more prevalent, because it affects the success of ones ability to survive and leave offspring over a large scale of time.
Say a bunch of birds migrate to an island, and starting out, they're all identical. On the island the only source of food is stored inside large, difficult to break nuts. Now let's say one day a bird is born with a genetic mutation that results in formation of a larger than normal beak. This bird is able to easily break the nuts and eat, so his survivability on the island (and ultimately, reproductive success) is much higher than other birds. If he passes this gene on to his offspring, they will also benefit in the environment from their larger beaks. These birds are more likely to survive and reproduce, and eventually (over a very long period of time) you would expect to see evolution favor the birds with the "large beak" adaptation.
Genetic material can't change in response to the environment. What can change is the frequency with which certain genetic material survives in an environment - and that is the basis of evolution, changes in allele frequency in a population over time.
