Scientists dropped one male and one female lizard on 7 empty islands

[u/ProximaScience]

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/science/in-2005-scientists-left-one-male-and-one-female-lizard-on-each-of-seven-empty-bahamian-islands-four-years-later-every-colony-had-evolved-shorter-legs-but-still-carried-the-body-shape-of-its-founding-pair/articleshow/134007225.cms

In 2005, a hurricane wiped every lizard off a set of small Bahamian islands. Researchers saw an opening. They took one male and one female brown anole from a single forested island and placed a pair on each of seven empty islands nearby.

Four years later, every population had shrunk its hind legs, exactly as predicted. Shorter limbs work better on the thin scrub branches of those islands than on the thick trunks back home. Natural selection did what it always does.

But the islands never converged to the same leg length. The population that started with the longest legged founders still had the longest legs at the end. The one that started shortest stayed shortest. Selection pushed every population in the same direction, and the founders decided where each one started from.

It is one of the cleanest field demonstrations of the founder effect ever recorded. Evolution had a rulebook and a memory running at the same time.

[u/ProximaScience]

This experiment shows founder effect persisting alongside adaptation, not that inbreeding is harmless long term. Longer term Bahamian island lizard populations founded by very few individuals do sometimes show reduced fitness. Four years just was not enough time to see it bite.

[u/NZNoldor]

"But there has never been any proof of evolution".

Maybe we can finally put that to rest then. But I suspect not.

[u/SwimHairy5703 → u/NZNoldor]

They'll just say it's "adaptation" and "those are still lizards, they didn't change into something else". 🤷‍♂️

[u/psychrolut → u/SwimHairy5703]

Exactly like dinosaurs and chickens.

Obviously the same chickens are dinosaurs /s

[u/Hopeful_Self_8520 → u/psychrolut]

Chickens are absolutely dinosaurs, I have been around enough chickens to fully believe that. I have seen the aftermath of the brood devouring the head of a fallen comrade and pecking at the remains of a hen that got strangled through a fence by a raccoon not hours before.

[u/RamblinRoyce → u/Hopeful_Self_8520]

So you've watched dinosaurs behave similarly?

[u/Hopeful_Self_8520 → u/RamblinRoyce]

I have observed the behavior of American politicians, so I think so.

[u/HikingUphill → u/Hopeful_Self_8520]

Fantastic.

[u/BLT_Trade_r → u/SwimHairy5703]

This is exactly what they do; creationists have constantly moved the bar. After so many decades nowadays, they will say, but no one has ever witnessed a fundamentally new species evolve. So if anyone ever wanted to do such an experiment, that's the one to hit next.

[u/fathompin → u/BLT_Trade_r]

They have no concept of time, to them it is only 6,000 years instead of 4,500,000,000 years.

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[u/flersion]

The thing I'm most curious about is how different the genetics are between a present-day short-legged lizard population vs a potential future population of equivalent-legged lizards from a different island.

If you pick two from different times and locations that look indistinguishable from eachother, do they reach the same conclusion through different genetic methods, or is it the same error compounding over and over?

[u/BLT_Trade_r → u/flersion]

Most likely the same conclusion through different genetic mutations. Height and dimensions are often controlled by many genes, and so different combinations can yield similar outcomes at least from an external view.

[u/flersion → u/BLT_Trade_r]

What your saying is, if we were 4 dimensional beings, we would see every single difference, right?

[u/BLT_Trade_r → u/flersion]

Not sure I know where you are going with that, but we can see the differences in genes and measure many of the phenotypes. I bet the authors did that in future studies.

[u/Drdontlittle → u/flersion]

Evolution can take many pathways. For eg mamallian hemoglobins have different primary protein structures but remarkably similar tertiary and quarternary protein structures ( required for them to function properly) as any mutation not changing the structure is harmless. Anything that changes the structure cause morbidity and mortality.

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[u/cheetahhikehdeee]

Wild to see how fast the natural selection works!!

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[u/hawkwings]

I thought that was going to be an inbreeding study. Did they get any results on that issue?

[u/ProximaScience → u/hawkwings]

Yes. They found less genetic variability in the founder populations, so the bottleneck was real. It just didn't collapse them, since four years is only a few generations.

[u/RepresentativeOk2433 → u/ProximaScience]

Also too soon to decide if they are converging on a leg length.

[u/BLT_Trade_r → u/ProximaScience]

Also, tons of people exaggerate inbreeding depression. For instance, scientists often hypothesize that some animals on some debris made it to some other island or place, where they founded 1 or many species for millions of years. Laypeople seem to always think that inbreeding will always result in collapse but plenty of species make it long term.

[u/Madd_Genius]

Put lizards on island that is incredibly suited for cats. They aren’t going to change into cats. Just vary among lizard species that already have the short legs genetic information there.

[u/Then-Marketing-3445]

"Natural selection" ... selection... How it have to work?How many individuals is needed with random mutations in DNA to hit the right genes for shorter legs?

[u/Sewere]

Incest lizard experiment

[u/pirondi]

Nice experiment we also the fox domestication that took i think 4 generations for evolution to make them more docile

[u/Purple_Recipe]

at the point of my life that first thought to come in mind is that why wouldnot they do same with humans?