The process of evolution

[kitkat]

I have trouble understanding for example the flowering plant and the bee evolving to end up depending on each other for survival. What were they before they entered into this partnership of existence? If evolution is a long process and uneven at best how did these two evolve in different stages simultaneously in both species?

[Moontanman]

This relationship could have undoubtedly started many ways, one way that comes to mind is that some insect at some point was eating pollen from plants, the insects would inadvertently occasionally transfer pollen to another plant. the plants benefited from this and the plants that best attracted the insects benefited more so. this is a positive feed back loop, probably happened relatively fast.... thousands of generations might have resulted in a perceptively better relationship, millions of generations could account for what we see now... btw lots of insects pollinate plants and take advantage of this relationship, i doubt it evolved first in bees but bees could have exploited already present plant blossoms.

Edited October 29, 2011 by Moontanman

[kitkat]

This relationship could have undoubtedly started many ways, one way that comes to mind is that some insect at some point was eating pollen from plants, the insects would inadvertently occasionally transfer pollen to another plant. the plants benefited from this and the plants that best attracted the insects benefited more so. this is a positive feed back loop, probably happened relatively fast.... thousands of generations might have resulted in a perceptively better relationship, millions of generations could account for what we see now... btw lots of insects pollinate plants and take advantage of this relationship, i doubt it evolved first in bees but bees could have exploited already present plant blossoms.

 

But it comes down to the plant somehow receives this valuable information which is evident in a flower that resembles a wasp so the wasp will attempt to mate with it. The many variations that is produced to attract specific pollinators. I'm sorry but it is difficult to leave this relationship strictly up to chance that a lucky mutation happens that creates this relationship. Since no one has witnessed the process of how it actually ended to result in this beneficial relationship between flower and pollinator, how it is interpreted remains a guess at this point.

[Psycho]

But it comes down to the plant somehow receives this valuable information which is evident in a flower that resembles a wasp so the wasp will attempt to mate with it. The many variations that is produced to attract specific pollinators. I'm sorry but it is difficult to leave this relationship strictly up to chance that a lucky mutation happens that creates this relationship. Since no one has witnessed the process of how it actually ended to result in this beneficial relationship between flower and pollinator, how it is interpreted remains a guess at this point.

Not really, as given the law of large numbers it is going to happen that a mutation will occur that benefits the plant in some way, one simpler example is colour change, bees are attracted to UV and plants have very bright flowers within the UV, it is quite easy to see how a plant accidentally gains a colour change is therefore bees are more attracted to it over others so more versions of that gene are passed on.

 

Plants don't receive any information they just die if they have bad traits (with their genes) and live on with good traits, therefore a system full of good traits prevails.

[kitkat]

What about the flower that looks like a wasp?

[Phi for All]

What about the flower that looks like a wasp?

If you're saying that evolution couldn't have produced the relationship between the tongue orchid and the orchid dupe wasp, think about this. The natural selection process that specialized the plant to attract that particular wasp is actually doing too good a job. The orchid has reached a peak in being able to attract the dupe wasp and is now causing problems because the male wasps are choosing the plant over their own females to mate with.

 

If the orchid continues like this, it will actually cause population problems for the wasp it's trying to attract. And since the plant only attracts a certain type of wasp, if the wasp species dies out, the plant species is in jeopardy as well. The plant is killing its own species with this "lucky mutation".

 

Evolution isn't perfect, and has led to many failures. This doesn't sound like an intelligently designed relationship, does it?

[kitkat]

No, but it sure resembles some of the solutions that humans have made without thinking about future consequences of their actions.

[Phi for All]

No, but it sure resembles some of the solutions that humans have made without thinking about future consequences of their actions.

Well, thanks for the acknowledgement, but please stay focused on the purpose of your thread. Was your question about the wasp/flower relationship answered adequately? If you really think about it, it makes perfect sense that the flower would continue to get more and more wasp-friendly if that was what made the flower the most successful.

[granpa]

once birds evolved flowering plants evolved.

 

birds have to reduce weight so their digestive tracts are short and dont fully digest seeds.

 

once these plants had a way to disperse their seeds the next problem was fertilizing the flower.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee#Evolution

 

Bees, like ants, are a specialized form of wasp. The ancestors of bees were wasps in the family Crabronidae, and therefore predators of other insects. The switch from insect prey to pollen may have resulted from the consumption of prey insects which were flower visitors and were partially covered with pollen when they were fed to the wasp larvae. This same evolutionary scenario has also occurred within the vespoid wasps, where the group known as "pollen wasps" also evolved from predatory ancestors. Up until recently, the oldest non-compression bee fossil had been Cretotrigona prisca in New Jersey amber and of Cretaceous age, a meliponine. A recently reported bee fossil, of the genus Melittosphex, is considered "an extinct lineage of pollen-collecting Apoidea sister to the modern bees", and dates from the early Cretaceous (~100 mya).[14] Derived features of its morphology ("apomorphies") place it clearly within the bees, but it retains two unmodified ancestral traits ("plesiomorphies") of the legs (two mid-tibial spurs, and a slender hind basitarsus), indicative of its transitional status.

 

The earliest animal-pollinated flowers were pollinated by insects such as beetles, so the syndrome of insect pollination was well established before bees first appeared. The novelty is that bees are specialized as pollination agents, with behavioral and physical modifications that specifically enhance pollination, and are generally more efficient at the task than any other pollinating insect such as beetles, flies, butterflies and pollen wasps. The appearance of such floral specialists is believed to have driven the adaptive radiation of the angiosperms, and, in turn, the bees themselves.

 

Among living bee groups, the "short-tongued" bee family Colletidae has traditionally been considered the most "primitive", and sister taxon to the remainder of the bees. In the 21st century, however, some researchers have claimed that the Dasypodaidae is the basal group, the short, wasp-like mouthparts of colletids being the result of convergent evolution, rather than indicative of a plesiomorphic condition.[1] This subject is still under debate, and the phylogenetic relationships among bee families are poorly understood.

Edited October 31, 2011 by granpa

[kitkat]

okay so pollen was introduced to the larvae of the wasp and over time the wasp that was an insect predator switched to pollen. At this point please explain to me the process of when pollen was in contact with wasp larvae and how it got into its genes to eventually switching its diet to pollen.