HHMI BioInteractive

This activity supports the film The Origin of Species: Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree. Students are asked to formulate a hypothesis, and collect and analyze real research data to understand how quickly natural selection can act on specific traits in a population.  

A film produced In the Caribbean islands, adaptation to several common habitats has led to a large adaptive radiation with interesting examples of convergent evolution.

This activity supports the film The Origin of Species: Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree. Students are guided to sort the lizard species by appearance, then generate a phylogenetic tree using the lizards’ DNA sequences to evaluate whether species that appear similar are closely related to each other.

Phylogenetic trees and trait data for Greater Antillean Anolis lizards

Abstract: G. G. Simpson, one of the chief architects of evolutionary biology’s modern synthesis, proposed that diversification occurs on a macroevolutionary adaptive landscape, but landscape models are seldom used to study adaptive divergence in large radiations. We show that for Caribbean Anolis lizards, diversification on similar Simpsonian landscapes leads to striking convergence of entire faunas on four islands. Parallel radiations unfolding at large temporal scales shed light on the process of adaptive diversification, indicating that the adaptive landscape may give rise to predictable evolutionary patterns in nature, that adaptive peaks may be stable over macroevolutionary time, and that available geographic area influences the ability of lineages to discover new adaptive peaks.

The original scientific paper annotated with additional resources for students

Report Title: Rapid evolution of a native species following invasion by a congener

Authors: Y. E. Stuart, T. S. Campbell, P. A. Hohenlohe, R. G. Reynolds, L. J. Revell, J. B. Losos.

Publication Date: 24 October 2014

Reference: Vol 346, Issue 6208, pp. 463-466

DOI: 10.1126/science.125700