Biologists recognize laziness as main driver for evolution

The development of almost all multicellular creatures is driven by two factors, natural and sexual selection.

Major winners of the evolutionary race may be animals and plants rather "lazy", rather than adapted, for having a slow metabolism, concluded evolutionists in an article published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

We compared the speed of current mollusk metabolism with extinct predecessors over the past five million years, noting that extinct invertebrates had on average a faster metabolism than today's species, said Luke Strotz of the University of Kansas, USA.

The development of almost all multicellular creatures is driven by two factors, natural and sexual selection. In the first case, evolution is governed by environmental changes, in the second internal competition for the possibility of preserving lineage. In this fight the most expressive species overcome, leading to the appearance of advisories like peacock tails and rooster crests, which hinder survival.

Nowadays, according to Strotz, scientists often discuss the nature of natural selection and how it influences the survival of species, not provoking debates among evolutionists since the time of Charles Darwin and his early followers on the essence and mechanisms of natural selection.

To answer the question, scientists have analyzed shells from more than 300 extant and extinct species of mollusks that have inhabited the Atlantic coast for the last five million years, calculating and comparing the speed of metabolism in their bodies.

Each environment had an average speed of metabolism, which did not change even with the appearance or extinction of mollusk species, despite sudden climatic changes, massive extinctions, and other cataclysms.

Soon, biologists plan to examine whether the rule can be applied to other representatives of flora and fauna, including vertebrates, living at sea and on land.

It is as if evolution contributes to the survival of slower, apathetic creatures. The slower the metabolism, the greater the chances of the species surviving for a long time, and I believe we need to change our slogans: the lazier survive, adapted, concluded Bruce Lieberman of the University of Oxford, UK.