• Question: Son asks why are there specific groups of the same type of animal if each animal is mutating and adapting independently?

    Asked by mutantmummy on 30 Dec 2013.
    • Photo: Haihan Tan

      Haihan Tan answered on 30 Dec 2013:

      By “specific groups”, I assume that you mean species groupings? The term “species” refers to a grouping of organisms that can reproduce successfully with one another. While each individual animal is indeed carrying mutations independent of another of the same species, if it cannot reproduce, these mutations will not “survive” in the group. So the barrier of reproductive success “maintains” the species grouping, loosely speaking. Also, most adaptation is not immediately seen, and only emerges over generations – a slow and long process. So most changes in body form generally takes place slowly, with the individuals in a species grouping usually “changing” together over time because of reproductive mixing of the pool of genes in the species. Hope the answer makes sense!

    • Photo: Leila Abbas

      Leila Abbas answered on 6 Jan 2014:

      Hi! What a thought-provoking question! Thank you for that. If I’m reading you correctly, then you’re asking, for example in dogs, why there are Yorkshire Terriers and Great Danes when each individual dog is adapting independently? Well, I’d agree with Haihan – adaptation tends to take a really long time, so even though every individual in a generation will be slightly different to its sibling, the one which is better adapted will have a tiny advantage and this will be passed on. Over hundreds if not thousands of years, this will lead to different groups appearing within a species – and within those groups, there will be individual differences in what we call ‘fitness’.
      Hope that helps!

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