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Author Topic:   More Evidence of Evolution - Geomyidae and Geomydoecus
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1466 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 1 of 2 (388890)
03-08-2007 3:41 PM


In other words - pocket gophers and their pubic lice.
Evolution gains another pillar of support when we find convergence between multiple phylogenies developed by multiple, independent means. For instance, the convergence between phylogeny developed from genetics and phylogeny developed from morphological characteristics of fossils. It's a basic principle of reason that when two independent groups, using independent methods, measure and get the same results, we strongly conclude that they're actually measuring something that's really there (like an evolutionary history) and not simply making it up. The odds of two parties working independently developing the same falsehood are very, very low.
Convergence between genetics and fossils aren't the only relevant convergences to speak of, however. I recently read an example of convergence between two genetically-derived phylogenies: The common pocket gopher (family Geomyidae) and species of the genus Geomydoecus, their pubic lice.
From the article:
quote:
Phylogenies based on mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI) sequences for 15 taxa of gophers and 15 species of Geomydoecus show considerable congruence (Fig. 2). More detailed comparisons of these phylogenies revealed that 8 of the 12 ingroup nodes (67%) show potential cospeciation events (Page and Hafner, 1996). This amount of cospeciation is more than expected by chance alone (P < 0.01; reconciliation analysis, as implemented in TreeMap 1; Page, 1995). These comparisons indicate that cospeciation between gophers and lice is extensive.
No webpage found at provided URL: http://darwin.biology.utah.edu/PubsHTML/ClaytonPDF/71.pdf
Consider the plight of the pubic lice. Pocket gophers construct individual tunnel systems which one gopher will habitate; individual gophers rarely meet except to mate. Their lice are specialized, physically, for clinging to the hairs of their host; they are not highly mobile on other terrain. As a result, gopher pubic lice rarely encounter disparate individuals except when their hosts meet to mate.
From an evolutionary perspective, these ecological realities mean that gophers and their lice should undergo speciation in response to the same events; thus, we should see a large degree of convergence between the evolutionary histories of these organisms as their unrelated lineages speciate in parallel. That this prediction from ecology is satisfied by genetics is further support of the accuracy of evolutionary models.
On the other hand, from the perspective of creationism, where both of these species were created, independently, in recent time; and where the entire science of molecular phylogeny returns, not meaningful historical data, but random noise "interpreted" as meaningful; we should not expect to see such convergence. Any given species, no matter its ecology, should return results that are completely random and divergent from any other species.
That's not what we see, disproving creationism and lending support to evolutionary models. Parallel speciation, and the congruent phylogenies that result, supports evolution but cannot be reconciled with the creationist worldview.

AdminQuetzal
Inactive Member


Message 2 of 2 (388895)
03-08-2007 4:03 PM


Thread copied to the More Evidence of Evolution - Geomyidae and Geomydoecus thread in the Biological Evolution forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.

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