Question

Given how the process of evolution appears to occur, how might concepts presented in this unit be used to help predict how any given organism might evolve in the future? How might this knowledge lead to human intervention, positive or negative, in that organism’s natural evolutionary process?

@petiteme Do you know anything about this one? =/

Answer 1

Found this: It might help if you understood what the theory of evolution was. It begins by stating all populations have some variation. All the animals in a species will have small differences unless they are clones. If the environment changes, some animals may be better adapted than others. The better adapted animals will stand to have a higher breeding success. These animals will then dominate the gene pool. This process is called natural selection, and since changes add up over time, the theory is that in a very long time natural selection may give rise to new species.

Taking the question at face value, it should have been anticipated that pesticides and antibiotics would eventually be ineffective because the target organisms would evolve resistance to them. This is in fact exactly what happened. Domestic animals are good examples of human intervention in evolution. The dog is actually a domesticated wolf. The wild ancestor of the cow is now extinct. All these animals were once independent of human activities, but we have changed their evolution such that they are now almost completely dependent on us. This often includes what we consider pests. The best example is the housefly. It is actually an African species of fly which left its native environment when humans left Africa about 200,000 years ago. Like humans themselves, houseflies are tropical and would freeze to death in northern climates without protection. We protect our self with clothes. The housefly hibernates in barns and attics where it never freezes. The fly would soon become extinct in cold climates without the presence of humans.
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