Atavism

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Early embryos of various species display some ancestral features, like the tail on this human embryo. These features normally disappear in later development, but it may not happen if the animal has an atavism. Tubal Pregnancy with embryo.jpg
Early embryos of various species display some ancestral features, like the tail on this human embryo. These features normally disappear in later development, but it may not happen if the animal has an atavism.

In biology, an atavism is a modification of a biological structure whereby an ancestral genetic trait reappears after having been lost through evolutionary change in previous generations. [3] Atavisms can occur in several ways, [4] one of which is when genes for previously existing phenotypic features are preserved in DNA, and these become expressed through a mutation that either knocks out the dominant genes for the new traits or makes the old traits dominate the new one. [3] A number of traits can vary as a result of shortening of the fetal development of a trait (neoteny) or by prolongation of the same. In such a case, a shift in the time a trait is allowed to develop before it is fixed can bring forth an ancestral phenotype. [5] Atavisms are often seen as evidence of evolution. [6]

Contents

In social sciences, atavism is the tendency of reversion. For example, people in the modern era reverting to the ways of thinking and acting of a former time.

The word atavism is derived from the Latin atavus—a great-great-great-grandfather or, more generally, an ancestor.

Biology

Evolutionarily traits that have disappeared phenotypically do not necessarily disappear from an organism's DNA. The gene sequence often remains, but is inactive. Such an unused gene may remain in the genome for many generations. [4] [7] As long as the gene remains intact, a fault in the genetic control suppressing the gene can lead to it being expressed again. Sometimes, the expression of dormant genes can be induced by artificial stimulation.

Atavisms have been observed in humans, such as with infants born with vestigial tails (called a "coccygeal process", "coccygeal projection", or "caudal appendage"). [8] Atavism can also be seen in humans who possess large teeth, like those of other primates. [9] In addition, a case of "snake heart", the presence of "coronary circulation and myocardial architecture [that closely] resemble those of the reptilian heart", has also been reported in medical literature. [10] Atavism has also recently been induced in avian dinosaur (bird) fetuses to express dormant ancestral non-avian dinosaur (non-bird) features, including teeth. [11]

Other examples of observed atavisms include:

Culture

Atavism is a term in Joseph Schumpeter's explanation of World War I in twentieth-century liberal Europe. He defends the liberal international relations theory that an international society built on commerce will avoid war because of war's destructiveness and comparative cost. His reason for World War I is termed "atavism", in which he asserts that senescent governments in Europe (those of the German Empire, Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire, and Austro-Hungarian Empire) pulled the liberal Europe into war, and that the liberal regimes of the other continental powers did not cause it. He used this idea to say that liberalism and commerce would continue to have a soothing effect in international relations, and that war would not arise between nations which are connected by commercial ties. [29] This latter idea is very similar to the later Golden Arches theory.

University of London professor Guy Standing has identified three distinct sub-groups of the precariat, one of which he refers to as "atavists", who long for what they see as a lost past. [30]

Social Darwinism

During the interval between the acceptance of evolution in the mid-1800s and the rise of the modern understanding of genetics in the early 1900s, atavism was used to account for the reappearance in an individual of a trait after several generations of absence—often called a "throw-back".[ citation needed ] The idea that atavisms could be made to accumulate by selective breeding, or breeding back, led to breeds such as Heck cattle.[ citation needed ] This had been bred from ancient landraces with selected primitive traits, in an attempt of "reviving" the aurochs, an extinct species of wild cattle.[ citation needed ] The same notions of atavisms were used by social Darwinists, who claimed that "inferior" races displayed atavistic traits, and represented more primitive traits than other races.[ citation needed ] Both atavism's and Ernst Haeckel's recapitulation theory are related to evolutionary progress, as development towards a greater complexity and a superior ability.[ citation needed ]

In addition, the concept of atavism as part of an individualistic explanation of the causes of criminal deviance was popularised by the Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso in the 1870s. [31] He attempted to identify physical characteristics common to criminals and labeled those he found as atavistic, 'throw-back' traits that determined 'primitive' criminal behavior. His statistical evidence and the closely related idea of eugenics have long since been abandoned by the scientific community, but the concept that physical traits may affect the likelihood of criminal or unethical behavior in a person still has some scientific support. [32]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evolution</span> Change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations

Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. The process of evolution has given rise to biodiversity at every level of biological organisation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual selection</span> Mode of natural selection involving the choosing of and competition for mates

Sexual selection is a mode of natural selection in which members of one biological sex choose mates of the other sex to mate with, and compete with members of the same sex for access to members of the opposite sex. These two forms of selection mean that some individuals have greater reproductive success than others within a population, for example because they are more attractive or prefer more attractive partners to produce offspring. Successful males benefit from frequent mating and monopolizing access to one or more fertile females. Females can maximise the return on the energy they invest in reproduction by selecting and mating with the best males.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Convergent evolution</span> Independent evolution of similar features

Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last common ancestor of those groups. The cladistic term for the same phenomenon is homoplasy. The recurrent evolution of flight is a classic example, as flying insects, birds, pterosaurs, and bats have independently evolved the useful capacity of flight. Functionally similar features that have arisen through convergent evolution are analogous, whereas homologous structures or traits have a common origin but can have dissimilar functions. Bird, bat, and pterosaur wings are analogous structures, but their forelimbs are homologous, sharing an ancestral state despite serving different functions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homology (biology)</span> Shared ancestry between a pair of structures or genes in different taxa

In biology, homology is similarity due to shared ancestry between a pair of structures or genes in different taxa. A common example of homologous structures is the forelimbs of vertebrates, where the wings of bats and birds, the arms of primates, the front flippers of whales, and the forelegs of four-legged vertebrates like dogs and crocodiles are all derived from the same ancestral tetrapod structure. Evolutionary biology explains homologous structures adapted to different purposes as the result of descent with modification from a common ancestor. The term was first applied to biology in a non-evolutionary context by the anatomist Richard Owen in 1843. Homology was later explained by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in 1859, but had been observed before this, from Aristotle onwards, and it was explicitly analysed by Pierre Belon in 1555.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual dimorphism</span> Evolved difference in sex-specific characteristics

Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecious species, which consist of most animals and some plants. Differences may include secondary sex characteristics, size, weight, color, markings, or behavioral or cognitive traits. Male-male reproductive competition has evolved a diverse array of sexually dimorphic traits. Aggressive utility traits such as "battle" teeth and blunt heads reinforced as battering rams are used as weapons in aggressive interactions between rivals. Passive displays such as ornamental feathering or song-calling have also evolved mainly through sexual selection. These differences may be subtle or exaggerated and may be subjected to sexual selection and natural selection. The opposite of dimorphism is monomorphism, when both biological sexes are phenotypically indistinguishable from each other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vestigiality</span> Evolutionary retention of no longer needed structures in living organisms

Vestigiality is the retention, during the process of evolution, of genetically determined structures or attributes that have lost some or all of the ancestral function in a given species. Assessment of the vestigiality must generally rely on comparison with homologous features in related species. The emergence of vestigiality occurs by normal evolutionary processes, typically by loss of function of a feature that is no longer subject to positive selection pressures when it loses its value in a changing environment. The feature may be selected against more urgently when its function becomes definitively harmful, but if the lack of the feature provides no advantage, and its presence provides no disadvantage, the feature may not be phased out by natural selection and persist across species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dollo's law of irreversibility</span> Hypothesis by Louis Dollo in 1893, which states evolution is not exactly reversible

Dollo's law of irreversibility, proposed in 1893 by Belgian paleontologist Louis Dollo states that, "an organism never returns exactly to a former state, even if it finds itself placed in conditions of existence identical to those in which it has previously lived ... it always keeps some trace of the intermediate stages through which it has passed."

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References

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  2. ↑ "Multi-cell Organisms". Universe-review.ca. Retrieved 2011-09-29.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Brian K. Hall (1984), "Developmental mechanisms underlying the atavisms", Biological Reviews, 59 (1): 89–124, doi:10.1111/j.1469-185x.1984.tb00402.x, PMID   6367843, S2CID   29258934
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  6. 1 2 Brian K. Hall (1995), "Atavisms and atavistic mutations", Nature Genetics, 10 (2): 126–127, doi:10.1038/ng0695-126, PMID   7663504, S2CID   27868367
  7. ↑ Collin, R.; Cipriani, R. (2003). "Dollo's law and the re-evolution of shell coiling". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 270 (1533): 2551–2555. doi:10.1098/rspb.2003.2517. PMC   1691546 . PMID   14728776.
  8. ↑ "29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 2". Archived from the original on 29 October 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-08.
  9. ↑ "What our tails tell us". Los Angeles Times . 2007-02-15. Archived from the original on 12 March 2009. Retrieved 2009-03-08.
  10. ↑ Walia, I.; Arora, H. S.; Barker, E. A.; Delgado R.M., III; Frazier, O. H. (2010). "Snake Heart: A Case of Atavism in a Human Being". Texas Heart Institute Journal. 37 (6): 687–690. PMC   3014134 . PMID   21224948.
  11. ↑ "Dino-Chicken Gets One Step Closer". Live Science . 19 May 2015.
  12. ↑ Hiroko Tabuchi (November 5, 2006), Dolphin May Have 'Remains' of Legs, Livescience.com
  13. ↑ Tyson R, Graham JP, Colahan PT, Berry CR (2004). "Skeletal atavism in a miniature horse". Veterinary Radiology & Ultrasound. 45 (4): 315–7. doi:10.1111/j.1740-8261.2004.04060.x. PMID   15373256.
  14. ↑ Simpson, G. G. (1951), Horses: The story of the horse family in the modern world and through sixty million years of evolution, Oxford University Press[ page needed ]
  15. ↑ Raynauad, A. (1977), Somites and early morphogenesis in reptile limbs. In Vertebrate Limb and Somite Morphogenesis, Cambridge University Press, London, pp. 373–386
  16. ↑ Katja Domes; et al. (2007), "Reevolution of sexuality breaks Dollo's law", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 104 (17): 7139–7144, Bibcode:2007PNAS..104.7139D, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0700034104 , PMC   1855408 , PMID   17438282
  17. ↑ Matthew P. Harris; et al. (2006), "The Development of Archosaurian First-Generation Teeth in a Chicken Mutant", Current Biology, 16 (4): 371–377, doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2005.12.047 , PMID   16488870
  18. ↑ Elias-Neto, Moysés; Belles, Xavier (3 August 2016). "Tergal and pleural structures contribute to the formation of ectopic prothoracic wings in cockroaches". Royal Society Open Science. 3 (8): 160347. Bibcode:2016RSOS....360347E. doi:10.1098/rsos.160347. PMC   5108966 . PMID   27853616.
  19. ↑ Kukalová-Peck, Jarmila (11 March 2008). "Phylogeny of Higher Taxa in Insecta: Finding Synapomorphies in the Extant Fauna and Separating Them from Homoplasies". Evolutionary Biology. 35 (1): 4–51. doi:10.1007/s11692-007-9013-4. S2CID   25126171.
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  21. 1 2 Robert J. Raikow; et al. (1979), "The evolutionary re-establishment of a lost ancestral muscle in the bowerbird assemblage.", Condor, 81 (2): 203–206, doi:10.2307/1367290, JSTOR   1367290
  22. ↑ Robert J. Raikow (1975), "The evolutionary reappearance of ancestral muscles as developmental anomalies in two species of birds", Condor, 77 (4): 514–517, doi:10.2307/1366113, JSTOR   1366113
  23. ↑ E. Evansh (1959), "Hyoid muscle anomalies in the dog (Canis familiaris)", Anatomical Record, 133 (2): 145–162, doi:10.1002/ar.1091330204, PMID   13670435, S2CID   33397424
  24. ↑ William E. Castle (1906), The origin of a polydactylous race of guinea-pigs (49 ed.), Carnegie Institution of Washington
  25. ↑ Domes, K.; Norton, R. A.; Maraun, M.; Scheu, S. (2007). "Reevolution of sexuality breaks Dollo's law". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 104 (17): 7139–7144. Bibcode:2007PNAS..104.7139D. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0700034104 . PMC   1855408 . PMID   17438282.
  26. ↑ Meyer-Rochow, Victor Benno (1989). "A report of webbed feet in a mature axolotl Siredon mexicanum and remarks on webbed feet in Urodela generally". Amphibia-Reptilia. 10: 89–92. doi:10.1163/156853889x00340.
  27. ↑ Anh H. Dao; Martin G. Netsky (1984), "Human tails and pseudotails", Human Pathology, 15 (5): 449–453, doi:10.1016/S0046-8177(84)80079-9, PMID   6373560
  28. ↑ Byrne, Alex; Hilbert, David R. (2010). "How do Things Look to the Color-Blind?". Color Ontology and Color Science. pp. 258–290. doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262013857.003.0012. ISBN   978-0-262-01385-7.
  29. ↑ Joseph Schumpeter (1969). "Imperialism and Capitalism". Imperialism and Social Classes. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company.
  30. ↑ Guy Standing (2016-11-09). "Meet the precariat, the new global class fuelling the rise of populism". World Economic Forum.
  31. ↑ "Lombroso and the pathological perspective can be traced back to the 19th century following a history of demonic and classical perspectives". Criminology.fsu.edu. 2000-11-27. Archived from the original on 2013-09-23. Retrieved 2013-12-04.
  32. ↑ Haselhuhn, M. P.; Wong, E. M. (2011). "Bad to the bone: Facial structure predicts unethical behaviour". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 279 (1728): 571–576. doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.1193. PMC   3234568 . PMID   21733897.
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