{"670307":{"#nid":"670307","#data":{"type":"external_news","title":"Long-Term Lizard Study Challenges the Rules of Evolutionary Biology","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBy lassoing lizards, putting tiny chips on their legs, and tracking them for three years, Georgia Tech\u2019s James Stroud revealed why species often appear unchanged for millions of years despite Charles Darwin\u2019s theory of constant evolution.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ECharles Darwin said that evolution was constantly happening, causing animals to adapt for survival. But many of his contemporaries disagreed. If evolution is always causing things to change, they asked, then how is it that two fossils from the same species, found in the same location, can look identical despite being 50 million years apart in age?\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EEverything changed in the past 40 years, when an explosion of evolutionary studies proved that evolution can and does occur rapidly \u2014 even from one generation to the next. Evolutionary biologists were thrilled, but the findings reinforced the same paradox: If evolution can happen so fast, then why do most species on Earth continue to appear the same for many millions of years?\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThis is known as the paradox of stasis, and \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/biosciences.gatech.edu\/people\/james-stroud\u0022\u003EJames Stroud\u003C\/a\u003E, assistant professor in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/biosciences.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ESchool of Biological Sciences\u003C\/a\u003E at the Georgia Institute of Technology, set out to investigate it. He conducted a long-term study in a community of lizards, measuring how evolution unfolds in the wild across multiple species. In doing so, he may have found the answer to one of evolution\u2019s greatest challenges.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHis research was \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.2222071120\u0022\u003Epublished as the cover story\u003C\/a\u003E in the \u003Cem\u003EProceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences\u003C\/em\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/research.gatech.edu\/feature\/evolution-lizard-study\u0022\u003ERead more\u0026nbsp;\u00bb\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\r\n\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter and Media Contact:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u0026nbsp;Catherine Barzler |\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:catherine.barzler@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ecatherine.barzler@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27255","created_gmt":"2023-10-09 19:17:15","changed_gmt":"2023-10-09 19:24:24","author":"Josie Giles","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","publication":"Georgia Tech Research News","field_article_url":"","publication_url":"https:\/\/research.gatech.edu\/feature\/evolution-lizard-study","dateline":{"date":"2023-10-09T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2023-10-09T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"671990":{"id":"671990","type":"image","title":"lizard-evolution-feature-thumb.jpg","body":null,"created":"1696879050","gmt_created":"2023-10-09 19:17:30","changed":"1696879050","gmt_changed":"2023-10-09 19:17:30","alt":"American green anole (Credit: Day\u2019s Edge Productions)","file":{"fid":"255165","name":"lizard-evolution-feature-thumb.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2023\/10\/09\/lizard-evolution-feature-thumb.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2023\/10\/09\/lizard-evolution-feature-thumb.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":187447,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2023\/10\/09\/lizard-evolution-feature-thumb.jpg?itok=hAK4iKLk"}}},"media_ids":["671990"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"146","name":"Life Sciences and Biology"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}