Anthropogenic action can enhance the rate of evolution. Explain with the help of an example.
Ans.
Anthropogenic actions can enhance the rate of evolution through various mechanisms:
-
Selective Pressures: Human activities can create selective pressures that favor certain traits over others, leading to rapid evolutionary changes. For example, the use of pesticides in agriculture exerts strong selective pressure on insect populations, favoring individuals with resistance to the pesticide. This can lead to the rapid evolution of pesticide resistance within insect populations.
-
Habitat Modification: Human-induced habitat modification, such as deforestation or urbanization, can create novel environments with unique selective pressures. Organisms that can adapt to these new environments may experience rapid evolutionary changes. For instance, urbanization can create selective pressures favoring traits that enhance survival in urban landscapes, such as tolerance to pollution or ability to utilize human-generated resources.
-
Introduction of Novel Selection Pressures: Anthropogenic activities can introduce novel selection pressures that drive evolutionary changes. For example, overfishing can selectively remove individuals with certain traits, such as large body size or fast growth rates, from fish populations. This can lead to evolutionary changes in fish populations, such as shifts in size at maturation or changes in reproductive strategies, to cope with the selective pressure imposed by overfishing.
-
Artificial Selection: Humans deliberately select and breed organisms for desired traits in agricultural, horticultural, and animal breeding practices. This artificial selection can lead to rapid evolutionary changes in domesticated species. For example, selective breeding of crop plants for higher yield or livestock for specific traits has led to the rapid evolution of varieties with enhanced productivity or desired characteristics.
