Life Sciences
Making a Species Using “Magic Magic” By Aayush Purohit Photo by Charles J. Sharp [CC-BY-SA 4.0]
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t is truly remarkable to know that the planet we call home houses millions of different species, with speciation continuously adding to that amount. Speciation is the reason why the Earth houses such a wide variety of organisms, all sharing common features, while also having unique traits that set them apart from one another. The formation of new species does not happen in the blink of an eye, but rather takes centuries, or even millennia, before noticeable changes come about. Many different factors can account for speciation, ranging from environmental pressures to interactions with other organisms. Identifying and studying these factors can lead to understanding how certain species came to be and predicting what may happen to them in the future. Dr. Maria Servedio, a professor in the biology department at UNC-Chapel Hill, has spent more than 20 years working on understanding mechanisms
of evolution, speciation, and sexual selection. She and her lab utilize mathematical models—specifically, population genetic models—to understand why organisms behave in certain ways and how those behaviors can lead to evolutionary patterns. Most of the models created by Dr. Servedio are made with the computing system Mathematica, which uses manually inputted parameters with mathematical equations to model evolutionary behavior in a species over future generations. An example of a recent model she constructed in 2020 looked at so-called “magic traits” in organisms. As they are aptly named, “magic traits” are rare traits which have diverged in their expression due to local adaptation, thus potentially determining mating behavior and resulting in non-random mating behavior.2 Dr. Servedio found through her modeling research that, contrary to popular belief, the mating trait, which
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determines mating preferences, has a much stronger effect on an ecological trait, which is related to the ecology of an organism, rather than the other way around. The mere presence of the mating trait is enough to cause local adaptation of ecological traits.2 Dr. Servedio
Dr. Maria Servedio
