Jenna's Evolution Blog (BIOL 540)

The disease I would like to discuss is Clostiodioides difficile, commonly referred to as C. diff. It is an infection of the gut that causes extreme colitis and diarrhea, as well as nausea, fever, and stomach discomfort. It most commonly occurs in patients after taking antibiotics for an extended period of time or in a particularly high dose--it is also common for patients that have had a stay in the hospital (known as an iatrogenic infection) to get C. diff since it is so incredibly contagious and people with it often have to go to the hospital. I thought this would be an interesting disease to cover because not only is it often overlooked as a deadly, miserable, and very common disease, but it also has roots in the overuse of antibiotics that western medicine has been guilty of for years. Another element of this is without a doubt a western lifestyle (sedentary and unhealthy eating) ignoring the huge role that diet plays into gut health in the microbiome. Both of these play a big part...

Speciation is something that comes usually from a buildup of mutations between at least a couple of generations. Since separate species have to have exclusive mating within their populations, it takes a lot of gradual buildup of mutations to branch off from one species to another. It especially would take even longer for the change in mutations to be so great that even when living in the same geographic area, they still managed to diverge into different species. I can see however that in the case of allopatric speciation, how it could happen faster than sympatric. Since the two groups would be in different environments, similar to what we see in Darwin's finches, it is more likely we would begin to see different mutations between the different groups. Obviously it takes a lot more mutations than that to create a whole new species, but it's essentially the same mechanism. Of course, it does depend on the species and the overall mutations rate of the organism. Every species is di...

 I think when it comes to sexual dimorphism and who courts who, the most important thing to remember is that in reality--it's not about sex of the individuals involved at all. As we discussed in class, it's about who invests more into the offspring instead! In probably 99% of species on earth, it is the case that females of a population are the ones that "invest more" into the offspring because they are the ones who are pregnant, give birth, breastfeed, do more of the early life care, etc. In the case of pipefish, however, it is the males who carry the babies inside them into they are ready to make their grand entrance! It makes perfect sense when you think about it that this courting phenomenon takes place--since procreating is so much work for the sex carrying the babies, they want to be woo-ed into choosing the best possible mate. They aren't going to go through that for just anybody--they're going to need to see some showgirl-like fin action before they co...