Flora and Fauna News

Birth of Charles Darwin
200 Years Ago Today

By Michael Plagens
Sonoran Desert Sciences

Shrewsbury, ENGLAND. ----- Two Hundred Years ago today on February 12, 1809, two of the most influential people of the 19th Century were born, namely Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin.

The Sonoran Desert is a fine place to celebrate the crowning achievement of Darwin, namely On the Origin of Species. So many beautiful examples of evolution by Natural Selection can be seen here. For example, virtually every desert adapted animal and plant has closely related counterparts that thrive in moister, less harsh environments. On close inspection the Sonoran Desert organisms have evolved numerous adaptations in structure, physiology and behavior that improve their chances of survival under harsh desert conditions.

Convergent evolution is one result produced by natural selection that is very easy to observe in deserts. Basically if we look at plants, for example, that have evolved under similar conditions in desert many thousands of kilometers apart we find that they often converge on very similar strategies to overcome the same struggles. Succulents in the Kalahari and Sonoran Deserts are structured remarkably alike despite being unrelated (as evidenced by the flower structures that are not desert adapted). Evolution as explained by Darwin is a process that spans millions of years - yet the Sonoran Desert as we know it today is less than 15,000 years old. Thus many organism are still rapidly evolving here to meet the challenges posed by a hot, dry, changing climate. Every day exciting new discoveries are coming to light through the work of modern day biologists inspired by Charles Darwin.

Image of Charles Darwin at age 7.
Introduce your own children to the joys of nature!
This image is available Wikimedia where there are more Darwin images.