28 CONCEPT 23.1
Genetic variation makes
evolution possible
In The Origin of Species, DARWIN provided abundant evidence that life on Earth has evolved over time, and he proposed natural selection as the primary mechanism for that change. He observed that individuals differed in their inherited traits and that selection acted on such differences, leading to evolutionary change. Thus, Darwin realized that variation in heritable traits was a prerequisite for evolution, but he did not know precisely how organisms pass heritable traits to their offspring
Just a few years after Darwin published The Origin of Species, Gregor Mendel wrote a groundbreaking paper on inheritance in pea plants (see Chapter 14). In paper, Mendel proposed a particulate model of inheritance in which organisms transmit discrete heritable units (now called genes) to their offspring. Although Darwin did not know about genes, Mendel's paper set the stage for understanding the genetic differences on which evolution is based. Here we'll examine such genetic differences and how they are produced.