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Wild tomato plants on the Galapagos’s western islands are experiencing “reverse evolution” and reverting back to ancestral traits (www.smithsonianmag.com)

submitted 1 week ago by PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat to c/biology@mander.xyz

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[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 27 points 1 week ago (1 children)

"Reverse evolution" is simply normal evolution: mutation, selection, inheritance, in some order. It doesn't "march" in one or another direction, that's simply how we interpret it.

And, if I'm parsing the paper right, the mutation itself wasn't even reverted. It's just that additional mutations made the relevant enzyme behave more like it used to. Like twisting a wire twice, you know?

[–] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 week ago

Basically when the pressure to grow bigger fruits and yields disappears, all offspring have equal changes to breed.