Pratiquer les vertus citoyennes

Le point sur la biologie de l'évolution végétale :

http://www.uni-kassel.de/fb19/plantphysiology/niklas.pdf

Abstract In 1858, two naturalists, Charles Darwin and
Alfred Russel Wallace, independently proposed natural
selection as the basic mechanism responsible for the
origin of new phenotypic variants and, ultimately, new
species. A large body of evidence for this hypothesis was
published in Darwin's Origin of Species one year later,
the appearance of which provoked other leading scientists
like August Weismann to adopt and amplify Darwin's
perspective. Weismann's neo-Darwinian theory of evolution
was further elaborated, most notably in a series of
books by Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ernst Mayr, Julian
Huxley and others. In this article we first summarize the
history of life on Earth and provide recent evidence
demonstrating that Darwin's dilemma (the apparent
missing Precambrian record of life) has been resolved.
Next, the historical development and structure of the
"modern synthesis" is described within the context of the
following topics: paleobiology and rates of evolution,
mass extinctions and species selection, macroevolution
and punctuated equilibrium, sexual reproduction and
recombination, sexual selection and altruism, endosymbiosis
and eukaryotic cell evolution, evolutionary developmental
biology, phenotypic plasticity, epigenetic inheritance
and molecular evolution, experimental bacterial
evolution, and computer simulations (in silico evolution
of digital organisms). In addition, we discuss the expansion
of the modern synthesis, embracing all branches of
scientific disciplines. It is concluded that the basic tenets
of the synthetic theory have survived, but in modified
form. These sub-theories require continued elaboration,
particularly in light of molecular biology, to answer openended
questions concerning the mechanisms of evolution
in all five kingdoms of life.