 Biologists at the University of California, Riverside report new evidence for evolutionary change recorded in both the fossil record and the genomes (or genetic blueprints) of living organisms, providing fresh support for Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.The researchers were able to correlate the progressive loss of enamel in the fossil record with a simultaneous molecular decay of a gene, called the enamelin gene, that is involved in enamel formation in mammals.
Darwin argued that all organisms are descended from one or a few organisms and that natural selection drives evolutionary change. The fossil record demonstrates that the first mammals had teeth with enamel.”The molecular counterpart to vestigial organs is pseudogenes that are descended from formerly functional genes, said Mark Springer, a professor of biology, who led the study. Springer explained. “In our research we clearly see the parallel evolution of enamel loss in the fossil record and the molecular decay of the enamelin gene into a pseudogene in representatives of four different orders of mammals that have lost enamel.”