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Welcome. My name
is Bree Rosenblum.
I am a professor at the University
of California, Berkeley,
and today, I'm excited
to share a topic
that is near and
dear to my heart,
on the genetics of adaptation.
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Today, I'd like to accomplish
three things with you.
First, I want you to
understand what do I mean
when I say "the genetics
of adaptation."
Second, I'd like to walk through
a real-life example with you
that's based on my own research.
Third, I'd like to make
sure you understand
the importance of this field
and what are the
pressing questions
that we need to
answer in the future.
Let's get started.
What are the genetics
of adaptation?
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Well, as you know, our
world is comprised of
an incredible amount of
biological diversity,
and that biological
diversity has evolved over
millions and millions
and millions of years.
There are a few major
processes in evolution
that shape biological diversity,
that shape the tree of life.
In some of the introductory
lectures about evolution,
you've probably heard
about genetic drift
and natural selection.
Today, we're really going to
zoom in on natural selection.
Natural selection is one
of the primary processes
that shape life on Earth.
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What is natural selection?
Well, let's talk
about adaptation.
Adaptation is the result
of natural selection.
It's the process by which
organisms become better suited to
the environmental conditions
where they're found,
and it's important
to remember that
this adaptation is
occurring based on
heritable genetic changes
over generations.
Adaptation isn't just how
individual organisms
change in response,
moment to moment, to
their environments.
Adaptation is the process of
organisms becoming suited,
over generations,
with genetic changes.
In order for adaptation by
natural selection to proceed,
we need to have variation
in a population.
Not all individuals
can be the same.
We need to have heredity,
a way for those traits to be
passed across generations,
from parents to offspring,
and we need to have
differences in survival
or reproduction.
There has to be a reason why
some individuals are better
suited to the environment
and more likely to
pass their genes on
to the next generation.
Adaptation is occurring
all the time around us,
and I'm going to
take a deeper dive
into a specific example,
but first I just want to
highlight a handful of examples.
