2023-10-26 06:00:07
The stasis paradox, a concept that has long been a source of perplexity in evolutionary biology, might finally be clarified. A long-term study of lizards by James Stroud, an assistant in the School of Biological Sciences at Georgia Tech, offers new answers.
Evolutionary biology raises a puzzling question: why do some species seem unchanging despite millions of years of existence? This paradox (A paradox is a proposition that contains or appears to contain a logical contradiction, or a…) is known as the “stasis paradox.”
A green anole lizard (Anolis carolinensis).
Crédit: Day’s Edge Prods
To explore this mystery, James Stroud conducted a study on four species of Anolis lizards. This work was carried out on a small island at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens in Florida.
Stroud’s research relies on ongoing monitoring of the lizards. Using fishing rods fitted with tiny lassos, he captured the animals to measure various bodily traits. This monitoring lasted three years, allowing natural variations and survival rates to be noted.
Its results demonstrate that natural selection is not constant over time (Time is a concept developed by human beings to understand…). Some years, long-legged lizards survived better; other years, the opposite (In mathematics, the inverse of an element x of a set provided with a law of…) occurred.
James Stroud uses a small lasso attached to a fishing rod to catch a lizard.
Crédit: Day’s Edge Prods
Ultimately, these variations cancel each other out, resulting in a stable appearance for species over the years. Stroud points out that the lack of long-term studies has hampered understanding of this mechanism until now.
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#study #lifts #veil #paradox #evolution #species
