Darwin's Witnesses

The Grants measuring finch beaks in a cave on
Daphne Major, an island in the Galapagos.
Photo credit: Princeton Alumni Weekly
Is evolution a long, drawn-out process that no human could possibly see?

Well, to Rosemary and Peter Grant, evolution acts quickly. To them evolution is incredibly familiar, for they witnessed it with their own eyes. Starting in 1973, the two set-out on a 40-year experiment to observe the forces of natural selection on the sizes and shapes of two species of Darwin’s finches on Daphne Major, a volcanic island in the Galapagos. This experiment has revealed how the environment (an unpredictable factor), together with the predictable forces of inheritance and selection for fitness, influence the selection of traits. Did I mention the Grants are married? Even after 40 years of measuring finch beaks in a cave on a volcanic rock with no people in sight, they have remained so for 55 years. Below are the results for their first 30 years of work.
Further reading:
A Princeton Alumni Weekly review of the Grants' book 40 Years of Evolution. Darwin’s Finches on Daphne Major Island.
The Grants wrote a perspectives piece for Science this year (that mentions the hidden genetic variation of Mexican cave fish eyes).

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