Fit and Selected - . . the most (Feb/02/2009 )
Talking of 'Survival of the fittest' and 'Natural Selection', which organism is the most evolved and which organism is the fittest to survive?
when i was in school (are you surprised that i can remember that far back?) i had a botany teacher who said that orchids were the most evolved life on earth. did i forget to mention that he was an orchidologist?
Nabi on Feb 2 2009, 08:25 AM said:
Actually this is a question you cannot answer as there are no fittest and most evolved organisms. Evolution has no aim, but is a random process. And you cannot compare species as every species is evolved far enough to cope with its environment (until now) and is fit enough to survive in its niche/range/environment. Otherwise it would have been replaced.
Don't try to compare apples and oranges...
The more I think about, the more I am sure the organisms I work with (at the moment some kind of fungal like protists) are the most evolved organisms 
but here is one link for mdfenko: mixotrophy
gebirgsziege on Feb 2 2009, 07:34 PM said:
but here is one link for mdfenko: mixotrophy
All the parasites have the most apomorphic (derived) characteristics (sounds better than most evolved
). Aren't human beings, too kind of "earth parasites"? 
hobglobin on Feb 2 2009, 07:50 PM said:
gebirgsziege on Feb 2 2009, 07:34 PM said:
but here is one link for mdfenko: mixotrophy
All the parasites have the most apomorphic (derived) characteristics (sounds better than most evolved
). Aren't human beings, too kind of "earth parasites"? the parasites have, but sometimes it seems as if they are only able to adopt very fast (in time-spans of evolution) and specific......
gebirgsziege on Feb 2 2009, 01:34 PM said:
but here is one link for mdfenko: mixotrophy
thanks for the link. interesting...
This is very subjective. If you were to trace life back to an ancestor and then statistcaly compare DNA - perhaps yopu might have an answer for the most evolved - as in the greatest difference from the early DNA.
GeorgeWolff on Feb 3 2009, 02:44 AM said:
but what about all the draw-backs of the DNA-phylogenies like e.g. long branch attraction in trees (this means a group of organisms spilt, but sometime later a certain char. was re-gained or lost again so they have very similar DNA seqs again)....
And in microbial phylogenies there are lots of proven events of HGT....so quite a number of genes is quite useless for phylogenies.....
early gene tree plants
understand but consider that this would drive even greater diversity rather than homology.