Regional Geographical Features Like Mountains and Water Can Affect Evolutionary Outcomes

Regional geographical features like mountain barriers or the size of bodies of water also affect evolutionary outcomes.

This is explored further as biologists have developed a new method in a new study to determine and measure how these features influence the evolution of species.

As a separate discovery from the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection, the study focused on how geography, including natural structures and their distance, affects the local rates of speciation, species extinction, and species dispersal.

Regional Geographical Features

(Photo : Pablo Cozzaglio/AFP via Getty Images)
View of mountain barrier and lake in Chile.

Biologists from the Washington University in St. Louis published their new work in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) in 2022.

The study highlighted the relation between geography and evolutionary biology.

Based on the developed method, the biologists provided a statistical groundwork to show a model of how various geographical features can affect species and groups.

For instance, the researchers claimed that mountain barriers can impede the movement of species or accelerate the extinction of other species.

According to the study, the mountain barrier may also cause the diversion or dispersal of species should its members decide to take different routes to bypass the barrier.

On the other hand, bodies of water also came in the evolutionary outcomes.

It indicated that the distance a species would have to take between its current position toward its destination through the water is more challenging compared to moving inland.

The researchers acknowledged that there is no previous research that has developed standardized models that equate to how geographical features shape evolution.

As a result, they developed a new model that will connect the gap between geographical structures and species movement.

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Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution

Tackling the effects of regional geographical features on evolution is not possible without taking into account the theory of evolution-by natural selection of evolutionary biologist and naturalist Charles Darwin.

According to Darwin's theory, all current living organisms have gradually evolved within a prolonged period of time.

The so-called survival of the fittest concept emanated from this theory.

The said concept is what best describes the theoretical and practical underpinnings of evolution by natural selection.

This means that a species survives and evolves when it has adapted to its environment, including climate, natural disasters, and predators.

Moreover, physical or morphological features also undergo evolutionary outcomes if a living organism deemed them useful or necessary.

The theory suggested that evolutionary changes are the result of chance, determinism, necessity, and randomness.

These are considered to be the most fundamental discoveries by Darwin in his work, as per a separate research article published in the PNAS in 2007.

Significance of the New Study

Darwin's theory is separate yet related to the findings of the Washington University researchers.

However, the findings of the new study add to the grand narrative of how species evolved and survived for hundreds of millions of years.

The new model developed by biologists can help predict the future evolution or movement of species, as well as its extinction, according to Michael Landis, the lead author of the study, as cited by Phys.org.

The significance of the new study resides in its geographical approach toward evolutionary biology.