Evolution & Extinction

Keywords

Evolution, extinction, mass extinction, environmental change, habitat loss, competition, disease, genetics, species, flora, fauna.

Introduction

Without evolution, there would not be as many species as there are now. Like my website, I went through stages in it's design process, like choosing my colour scheme, what I'm going to add to it, and deciding on things like a logo and so on. Then the evolution happens, where I develop the website and add more information, and everything else on it. The second process never really changes.

Animal Evolution

This is true in the animal kingdom. To a degree. I mean, they're not going to choose anything on the website. You get the picture. In the animal kingdom, we see species evolving all the time. This can be as little as a change to a bird's beak (see about the finches found by Charles Darwin), or a major change, like a fish coming out of the water to live on land.

Either way, evolution is kind of needed. Even if just to make something better. If you look at the development of dogs during the last century, you'll see a change in their appearance, as well as other smaller attributes that changed as a result of in-breeding to find the best traits. This is mostly to do with genetics. Just take a look on the Internet at pictures of Pugs from the early 1900s.

Evolution can only happen so far, and so what happens then?

Enter Extinction

That's right. When a species cannot change anymore to suit its needs, it will eventually become extinct. This can be for a number of reasons, including:

Extinction can occur as the result of something happening within the environment, or also things that are out of it's control. Sometimes a species cannot cope with the changes, but also there are instances that it cannot control or adapt to so it can survive.

Interesting fact: the word amphibian comes from the Greek word meaning 'double life', and this makes a frog's life adaptable to water and land. Although they have lived through five different extinction points, they are now on the verge on being fully entinct.

How Fast can Extinction Occur?

How fast does extinction happen? Well, that depends on the situation. If a species is living peacefully by the side of a volcano, and then that volcano erupts and kills everything in it's path, chances are that species is going to die fairly quickly. But on the other spectrum of that theory, the rate at which a species dies that has no major changes for hundreds of years, is not going to become extinct any time soon.

Mass Extinction

There is also a point in time that a mass extinction occurs. This is when every species of flora and fauna are destroyed beyond living. Historic scientists have found at least 5 instances where there were worldwide mass extinctions. They have found proof of this in the soil that they have tested, along with the fossil records and all sorts of data they have used to show evidence. With these 5 mass extinction points, 4 of them have wiped out 95% of living organims on the planet at that time.