Question

The Modern Evolutionary Synthesis in ecology combines the ideas of two scientists. Name these two scientists, describe what each contributed separately, and how together they inform current evolutionary biology understanding?

Answer 1

In 1930s, Darwinian natural selection was combined with Mendelian inheritance to form the modern evolutionary synthesis. Sometimes it reffered to as the Neo-Darwinian theory.

The Modern Synthesis was developed by a number of now- legendary evolutionary biologists in the 1930s and 1940s.

The Modern Synthesis connection between the units of evolution (genes) and the mechanism of evolution (natural selection) was made.

This theory proposed a new definition of evolutionary as " changes in allele frequencies within population" thus emphasizing the genetics basis of evolution.

Four forces of evolution were identified as contributing to changes in allele frequencies- Random drift, gene flow, mutation pressure and natural selection.

Charles Darwin explained the persistence of genetic variation in the modern synthesis. He recognized that blending inheritance ( in which offspring were thought to be the genetic intermediates of their two parents ) would result in the rapid end of genetic variation within a population.

Gregor Mendel's particulate theory of inheritance in which the allele of a gene remain separate instead of merging.