Blog Post Module 3
When I first think of the term fitness, my head goes straight to people working out at the gym, really pumping some iron, or going on a really long run. However, from attending this week’s lecture, it completely changed my thought process as I received more insight on the evolutionary/biology perspective on fitness. Fitness in biology is not how strong and powerful one is, but instead, it is actually the process of how phenotypes can be passed onto the next generation through the gene pool. Fitness can be measured in a natural population by measuring an organism’s reproductive success, so basically just by keeping track of how many offspring an organism is able to reproduce. Therefore, an organism would be considered biologically fit if it were to produce a greater number of offspring. One example I have in mind is the bullfrog species. In order to quantify fitness, I would have to look at different mutations across the species, their environment, predators also in the environment, and their access to food and mating. One specific genetic trait that bullfrogs may inherit is albinism. Albino bullfrogs would be considered less biologically fit because before they even get the chance to reproduce, they are likely to be eaten by predators due to the fact that they cannot camouflage themselves.
I posted a similar thought to my blog about the gym in relation to fitness! I think it is awesome that we are both really looking at our preconceptions and working to learn in this class. You seem to be doing a great job!
ReplyDeleteI think most people, even biologists, immediately think of physical fitness when they hear the word fitness just because it is the most common use of the word in every day life. I think it is interesting that you talked about Bullfrogs as an example because another fitness thing about bullfrogs is that in a single season a female bullfrog will can lay up to like 20,000 eggs. I think that is interesting because they lay so many eggs and have so many offspring because of how many won't survive to have their own children it is important to increase their possible fitness by having extreme amounts of offspring
ReplyDeleteI agree that generally keeping track of how many offspring an organism is able to reproduce is a viable measure for success. However, when I was researching for my blog post, some means of reproduction such as parthenogenesis lead to a lack in diversity of genes. Even though an individual may produce a substantial amount of offspring to survive to the next generation, a continued lack of genetic diversity will result in extinction. In this case, can the amount of offspring be considered a measure of fitness. I feel like this is a frustrating example of an exception!
ReplyDeleteHey Lauren- When reading your posts, I too, once thought fitness just meant working out. But after many biology classes we see that there are two meanings when it comes to evolution/biology. You did a great job of explaining this and I loved reading your post!
ReplyDeleteLauren,
ReplyDeleteI also posted something about how my first thought when I heard fitness was about the gym. Upon reading comments I got on my post and some comments that you also have here on your post it seems like just about all of us think of it the same way. This makes me wonder if the term fitness in relation to gym was built upon how stronger, faster, more in shape animals were better able to survive and be more "fit" for their environment. Whoever created that word was a smart person....or not because it does make the English language just a bit more confusing
Hi Lauren, you probably won't see this considering I am last minute catching up on my blog replies. But, great discussion on fitness. I think we shared many talking points when discussing this subject!
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