Darwin and Lamarckian Theory of Evolution

Introduction

Evolution is the idea of a living organism adapting or mutating to gain beneficial physiological, psychological and structural features. The genetic makeup of all living things is constantly changing, due to DNA replication errors or outside factors, some of these changes impact drastically on the organism changing it for the better or worse. Typically when an organisms genetic code is changed for the better and it reproduces and outlives its unchanged counterparts this process is called evolution.

Evolution can happen to any living organism, and is constantly happening. For a species to be “evolved” no major physical characteristics need to be changed, an evolutionary trait can be anything from changed certain cellular size or a drastic change such as the forming of a tail. Certain activities can affect a species long term also. For instance a fish that needs to escape a predator might jump out of the water, over melena of the species doing this they will develop a higher lung capacity.

There are many explanations for why this happens the two most known explanations are Darwin’s theory of evolution and Lamarck’s theory of evolution, Darwin’s theory of evolution focuses on natural selection and the idea traits in organism are constantly changing and that positive traits will outlast those with no traits or bad traits. Lamarckian evolution focuses on an organism being able to change its genetic makeup by repeatedly doing a certain action, once this has been done over many generations the latest generation will look different from the first.

Pleistocene Organism

The procoptodon was a kangaroo predecessor that lived in the Pleistocene era, the procoptodon had many adaptations, including; structural adaptations, such as i...

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... reach. Any number of environmental changes could have caused this to happen, Darwin’s theory states that at least one procoptodon had to have had a small portion of grass in its diet and could digest it, therefore when the shrubs and trees died out a portion of the procoptodons were able to survive on the grass.

Conclusion

In conclusion Darwin’s theory of evolution best describes how the changes like; the two extra-long fingers on each paw, the long horse hoof like extra toe on each foot and the short snout and flat face all developed into an equal finger paw, equal toe length feet, and a longer snout. Darwin’s theory provides a solid reason why the procoptodon developed into the red kangaroo, based on the changing food supply. Compared to Lamarckian theory where the animals could change their digestive system on a genetic level to accept grass as a food source.