Week 4: Paleofantasy

This passage that I found was the first paragraph in a chapter in my book and it really set up the rest of the chapter and reminded me of concepts that we had discussed in class. "When we think about rapid change in a species, humans are often the first to come to mind, perhaps because we are so used to the idea that the modern world is very different from the one in which we evolved. But our anthropocentrism betrays us here as it does in so many other places. Scientists are discovering more and more examples of evolution occurring in the span of just a handful of generations in animals large and small. What's more, some of those examples illustrate the practical implications of evolution, and why fishermen and farmers, not just scientists, should take heed of its findings" (Zuk, 67).

I found this passage interesting because first off, I can see how humans would think of themselves first since we do learn and think about ourselves most of the time so it is easy to come to the conclusion that our species changes more rapidly than other species. Zuk gives a perfect example of how quickly evolution can happen in the wild with these crickets she found while on Kauai. The male crickets would sing to attract a female mate but the disadvantage to this was there were also parasite flies who could hear the chirping of the male cricket. A female fly would then dive-bomb the male cricket and leave behind inside of him her larvae who would gradually consume his flesh before buzzing away as adult flies. So the singing crickets were more likely to attract mates but more likely to get eaten and the non-singing crickets were less likely to mate but also less likely to get eaten. How would the cricket species adapt to this? She thought the whole population on Kauai would be wiped out entirely. But over the years the cricket population started losing the apparatus they had that would produce sound so they got quieter and quieter but with that, the population grew to a larger amount than before. The question to how the female crickets find the male crickets then is a tricky question. Zuk thinks maybe the silent crickets hang out near one of the few remaining callers but it is still a difficult question to answer.

Zuk's point with all of this though, is that this is one of the fastest cases of evolution in the wild (only taking a handful of generations) and that we aren't the only species that should be considered when we think about evolution changing rapidly and that rapidly changing evolution is starting to look like the norm. "The fundamental conclusion that must be drawn is that evolution as hitherto considered 'rapid' may often be the norm and not the exception" (Zuk, 72).