Evolutionary biology

Evolutionary biology studies how populations and species change across generations and how evolutionary processes produce the diversity of life.

Natural selection: The process by which heritable traits that improve reproduction become more common in a population. It explains adaptation when inherited differences affect survival or reproduction.
Population genetics: The study of genetic variation within and between populations and how it changes over time. It provides a quantitative framework for describing evolution in populations.
Antimicrobial resistance: The ability of microorganisms to survive exposure to drugs that once inhibited or killed them. Drug use selects resistant variants, making evolution observable on short timescales.
Charles Darwin: The naturalist who developed the theory of evolution by natural selection. His work supplied a mechanism for explaining adaptation and common descent.
Extended evolutionary synthesis: A proposed expansion of evolutionary theory emphasizing processes such as developmental bias and niche construction. It debates whether the modern synthesis adequately incorporates additional sources of evolutionary change.
Genetic drift: Random changes in allele frequencies across generations, strongest in small populations. It shows how populations evolve through chance rather than adaptive advantage.
Allele frequency: The proportion of copies of a gene in a population that are a particular allele. Changes in allele frequencies provide a basic measure of genetic evolution.
Cancer evolution: The change in genetic composition of tumor cell populations through mutation and selection. Tumors evolve resistance and variation as cell lineages compete within the body.
Alfred Russel Wallace: The naturalist who independently conceived evolution by natural selection. His parallel discovery helped bring natural selection before the scientific community.
Epigenetic inheritance: The transmission across generations of gene-expression states not caused by DNA-sequence changes. Its evolutionary importance depends on how reliably such states persist and affect fitness.

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