Evolutionary Biology

Evolutionary biology is a subsection of biology which focuses on evolution and the various diversity it has produced in the world. It goes under the assumption that life started from a single organism. What makes up the foundation of evolution are natural selection, common descent, and speciation. It is a necessary field for explaining all things about evolution.

Evolutionary biology has its roots with Charles Darwin, the father of the theory of evolution. It would not become an academic study until the 1930s, when Julian Huxley would create the modern evolutionary synthesis. This was the incorporation of fields that were previously thought to be unrelated, including genetics, systematics, paleontology, and ecology.

There have been many other biologists who have assisted with the foundation of evolutionary biology. Theodosius Dobzhansky and E. B. Ford both created the first way to research things in an empirical method (through observing rather than theories or pure logic).

On the opposite side, theoretical work was founded by Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright, and J. S. Haldane. This creates both sides of the coin needed for any study, and helped flesh out the topic.

Though the study was founded in the 1930s, it would not be until the 1980s when many universities created departments solely for evolutionary biology. Evolutionary biology, along with ecology, cell biology, and molecular biology, would go on to replace some of the departments in universities, like botany and zoology.

In the field of evolutionary biology, microbiology has seen an increase in interest. This is because as time goes on, we don't get new information from looking at things at a big picture. Instead, microbiology is used to study cells, and how they adapt constantly.

In current times, research has expanded into massively into genetics. Specifically, genetic architecture and how the adaptation and molecular evolution of organisms. This has caused an broadening not just in the topic but in science, creating new studies like evolutionary development biology (evo-devo) Evo-devo focuses mostly on embryonic development (development before birth), and as such is a more focused study then evolutionary biology.

Evolutionary biology has a very rich history for how short of a time it has been around. It has completely changed how we view evolution, and given us a better understand to it. With new topics emerging in evolutionary biology, and constant interest gathering from various studies, evolutionary biology will help us figure out our own future.


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