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Convergent Evolution

Convergent Evolution

Evolution shapes the features of organisms over time, ensuring that they are suited for the environments in which they live. Sometimes, selection pressure leads to the rise of similar but unrelated adaptations in organisms with no recent common ancestors, a process known as convergent evolution.

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The Evidence for Evolution

The Evidence for Evolution

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Limits to Natural Selection

Limits to Natural Selection

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Evolution of New Traits in Microbes

Evolution of New Traits in Microbes

Microorganisms evolve rapidly due to their large population sizes and short generation times, often exhibiting measurable changes within days under laboratory conditions. Natural selection acts on standing genetic variation, enabling the retention and amplification of beneficial traits that confer fitness advantages in changing environments.Adaptive Pigment Regulation in RhodobacterIn Rhodobacter, a genus of purple non-sulfur bacteria, light-harvesting pigments such as bacteriochlorophyll and...

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Formation of Species

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Mar 30, 2026

Visualizing Visual Adaptation

Visualizing Visual Adaptation

Published on: April 24, 2017

Convergent Evolution During Local Adaptation to Patchy Landscapes.

Peter L Ralph¹, Graham Coop²

¹Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America.

|November 17, 2015

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Species adapt to similar environments through convergent evolution or shared alleles spread by migration. Patches farther apart than a critical distance likely evolve independent locally adapted alleles, influencing evolutionary pathways.

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Last Updated: Mar 30, 2026

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Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

Published on: February 3, 2023

Area of Science:

Evolutionary biology
Population genetics
Ecology

Background:

Species adapt to diverse, patchy environments across their geographic range.
Adaptation can occur via convergent evolution (new mutations) or gene flow (shared alleles).

Purpose of the Study:

To model the balance between convergent evolution and migration-driven adaptation in patchy environments.
To determine the critical distance for independent allele evolution versus spread.
To identify population genetic signals of migrant allele spread.

Main Methods:

Developed a model of continuous environments with patchy selection.
Analyzed family structure of migration-selection equilibrium.
Treated rare successful migrant families as spatial branching processes.

Main Results:

A critical distance exists beyond which patches independently evolve locally adapted alleles.
This distance depends on dispersal, selection disadvantage, and mutation rate.
Identified genomic signals left by the spread of migrant alleles.

Conclusions:

Geographic separation plays a key role in promoting convergent adaptation.
The findings help understand evolutionary divergence and the genomic basis of adaptation in species with patchy distributions.