blog #18
The Wild Experiment That Showed Evolution in Real Time
by Ed Yong
January 31st, 2019
While the idea of evolution by natural selection is a generally accepted principle, one scientist was determined to prove it outside the lab. In 2010, Rowan Barrett designed an experiment in which hundreds of mice were divided into 6 pens, 3 with light and 3 with dark colored soil. After leaving the mice for several months, the researches found that their hypothesis had been met, those within the lighter soil enclosures had lighter fur, compared to those in the darker soil environments. The team went further into the study by defining the roll Agouti, a gene liked to fur color, plays in the selection. The results? "Agouti...known to affect fur color through the production of a yellow-brown pigment...it needs to partner up with other genes [to do so]. The delta-Ser mutation disrupts the part of the gene that facilitates those partnerships. It forces Agouti to work alone, which means that it produces much less pigment."
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