Did humans control natural selection of other species?

We think of natural survival of the fittest as the sort of affair that happened long before mass got imply . But one Soviet scientist believed that human race not only participated in a special variety of selection , but we ate better because of it .

When a harmless Hydra develops colors to look like a deadly snake , predators are untrusting and leave it alone . Butteflies get to resemble each otherso they can all benefit from have a sulphurous sense of taste . These are versions of mimicry that come to mind easily . They ’re also examples of a natural survival that has , for the most part , nothing to do with humans . Most examples have little to do with humans . Which is why the theories of Nikolai Vavilov were so surprising .

https://gizmodo.com/mullerian-mimicry-helps-prey-train-their-predators-980191926

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Vavilov was a soviet scientist who studied centers of origin – researching where geographically any given group of plants or animals evolved into what they are today . tame cats have spread throughout the world , but where did they come in from ? Where did groundless cats ? Or any other fantastic mintage ? Vavilov was most interested in find out where domesticate , and other , coinage of plant came from . As he researched , he noted that granger and nurseryman were thwart with the calculate - like weed that sneak into their plots . It was easy to take out the plants that were utterly unlike what they intended to develop , but , not the mimicker . One industrial plant face so much like flax that it was called “ sham flax , ” like fools amber , and was both difficult to place and impractical to weed out of a field .

Vavilov put two and two together and come up with Vavilovian mimicry . A farmer , with a draw of work to do , can only drop so much clock time inspecting the fields . Any obvious weeds get pulled , but locoweed that look middling much like useful crops will be passed over and make it . Over time , the sess that look most like the craw they ’re hide out next to will be selected for , and will flourish . Humans direct the evolution of plants – or plants get better and well at play tricks humans . Vavilov posit that this was n’t even a strictly one - sided human relationship . It ’s quite possible rye whiskey and oats got their start as foodstuffs by mimicking established crops . Perhaps they were slightly modify over the long time until they became as useful as the plant life they grew beside , or perhaps farmers just stumbled onto the fact that these “ weeds ” could be edible . Either way suddenly humans are n’t an observer in the process of natural selection for mimicking power . We ’re one of the reasons it continues .

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