• Question: How long does it take for an organism to evolve in a changed environment?

    Asked by raj2004 to Anna, James, Joe, Leonie, Olivia on 13 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Leonie Oostwoud Wijdenes

      Leonie Oostwoud Wijdenes answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      There is no fixed time frame for evolution. But the process will in general go faster in species that reproduce more often. For example, in humans reproduction takes much longer than in certain bacteria that can reproduce in minutes or hours, so these bacteria will also be able to evolve faster.

    • Photo: James Pope

      James Pope answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      Hi raj2004,

      A friend of mine was an evolutionary biologist and she could force fruit flys to evolve certain characteristics (through controlling who mated with who, to reproduce), within a few weeks, because as Leonie says they are a species that reproduce quickly. Other species can take a long time to evolve, some of the evolutions to get to Homo Sapiens took tens or hundreds of thousands of years.

      The ability of a species to evolve to changing conditions is a crucial part to the question about how animals and plants will adapt to climate change. Because they have evolved to fill a niche space, we really worry about Coral Reefs in a warming world as an example, because they are very limited in where they can live and the conditions they can survive in.

    • Photo: Joe Spencer

      Joe Spencer answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      Leonie is right, it varies and depends on the thing evolving and how fast they reproduce.
      Put it this way, scientists say if a neanderthal ( a now extinct species that is similar to humans), which existed over 100,000 years ago were to walk down the street in London, it’s likely no one will notice the difference.

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