Evolution

Before his now famous expedition to the Galapagos where Charles Darwin shaped his theory of evolution by natural selection, he was an undergraduate student right here at Christs College!

He joined the college after a few years studying medicine at Edinburgh University, and while a student at Cambridge, Darwin exercised a passion for the natural sciences, particularly botany, entomology, and geology. He spent his time collecting beetles in the fens, joining Rev. Adam Sedgwick (namesake of the Sedgwick Museum) on geological research and exploring the Botanic Gardens with his friend and mentor, Prof. John Stevens Henslow.

In his 1876 autobiography, Darwin commented on his years in Cambridge as “the most joyful of my happy life”.

Near the end of his undergraduate studies, Prof. Henslow invited Darwin to join the HMS Beagle on a voyage to South America. Darwin’s observations on this journey, including his famous interpretation of beak variation among Galapagos finches, shaped his revolutionary theory of natural selection.

One of the punts owned by Darwin College is named the Beagle in honour of this expedition.

Your genome can be thought of as a genetic code, and this code provides instructions that your cells use to build you and keep you alive!

Today, there are initiatives to record the genetic codes of many of the animal and plant species on earth. These global initiatives, such as the Vertebrate Genomes Project and the Darwin Tree of Life, are contributed to by many scientists at the University of Cambridge.

Greatly enabled by these projects, genome-wide comparisons of DNA sequences are used to determine relationships between species, reconstruct ancient migrations, and can even bring us back to the origins of life on earth!

Beyond disentangling what occurred throughout evolutionary history, scientists at the University are also deciphering the how and why. In other words: what are the rules that govern evolution? Are there forms or combinations that are simply impossible? How do different types of organisms adapt and evolve at different rates? If everything were to start again, would it occur the same way?

And it is not just the code itself that can impact evolutionary paths, but how that code is read by cells. By simulating environmental pressures and monitoring adaptive responses, researchers at the Gurdon Institute are investigating how epigenetic changes can lead to adaptation.

Image shows Cichlid fish from the East African Great Lakes, the most rapidly evolving vertebrates (i.e. animals with a backbone) that we know of. These are used to understand how new species arise from existing animal populations, a process called speciation. Image by Audrey Putman