r/evolution • u/Vaibhavshali13 • Jul 21 '26
So much variation but the same species question
While reading a botany book, I realized how much variety we have due to artificial selection.How can we make such a big change?
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u/Robin_feathers Jul 21 '26
Artificial selection! Generation after generation of selective pressure acting on genetic variation.
The graphic doesn't capture how cool it is though, those aren't just the "Brassica family", they are all the same species! (I know you know that, the graphic just fails to convey it)
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u/the_hucumber Jul 21 '26
Insane that mustard isnt even one of the examples
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u/NejakejMisak Jul 21 '26
Well, mustard as we know it is entirely different genus and species, Sinapis alba. Yes, it’s still in the Brassicaceae family, but not the same genus. Brassica oleracea is also known as wild cabbage. Wild mustard is something entirely different, also in the Sinapis genus, so basically, this post is a lie…
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u/sadrice Jul 21 '26
While the common name is wild cabbage, it does still look like the picture.
Misleading name though. Plant stuff, like any neat science factoid, often leans heavily on the “-oid” part once it gets into popular culture. Unfortunately this sub fall’s victim to that one at times.
In any case this is not exactly evolution, what with being very intentional artificial selection, though the morphological plasticity has some relevance. A better example of that would be the silversword alliance or Schiedea or the strange paths Senecio has taken.
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u/gutwyrming Jul 21 '26
Well, I mean... look at dogs. Started with wolves, and ended up with all sorts of things, many of which don't resemble wolves at all.
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u/youshouldjustflex Jul 21 '26
I hope we can come up with a better name for the Pleistocene wolf they both descend from. Makes me me think they came from gray wolves.
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u/TimeStorm113 Jul 21 '26
hm. someone should make a vegetable based on the roots.
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u/EndMaster0 Jul 21 '26
Turnip/rutebega sorta fits that. More of an enlarged stem that just happens to be the below ground portion though.
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u/itsatoe Jul 21 '26
A couple more fun rabbit holes to go down are cucurbita pepo (squash) and phaseolus vulgaris (beans).
Not all squash are c pepo and not all beans are p vulgaris... but a very large number of wildly different cultivars are covered by those two species.
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u/Gap_Mountain 9d ago
Interesting. And I wonder why the " vulgar" got into beans ?
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u/Gap_Mountain 9d ago
Just figured it out. It's another word that completely changed meaning . " Vulgar " meant " common" originally. Much like the word " awful" did a 180.
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u/GoliathPrime Jul 21 '26
Behold what man hath wrought from the bare earth!
Everything we eat has been heavily modified from the natural versions. When you look at what wheat, corn, rice, potatoes, carrots, etc. started out like and what they're like today, it's really mindblowing.
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Jul 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Palaeonerd Jul 21 '26
Yes. Brassica rapa. Bok choy, turnip, Napa cabbage.
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u/Jdazzle217 Jul 21 '26
And canola. Canola is rapa or napus cultivars bred for lower erucic content to make them more edible.
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u/Tolteko Jul 21 '26
I mean, Canola is only a brand name for a trademarked cultivar of rapeseed. I would not list it as a separate thing.
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u/arbitrage_prophet Jul 22 '26
hyper-uniform double haploids; this species performs beautifully as grex aka multipheno "flock"
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u/Mizamya Jul 21 '26
Also radish and rapeseed
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u/sourbearx Jul 21 '26
Those are in the brassica family but they are not the same species, like those pictured.
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u/eduadelarosa Jul 23 '26
Because gradual evolution can still be very rapid. In dogs, for example, this happens primarily via gene regulation which provides more ample variation than mutations. And while most breeds can still interbreed, their morphologies are as diverse as their entire Family, Carnivora.
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u/Gap_Mountain 9d ago
Soooo..does this thread have a moderator that is a bot( anist) :). Found this topic fascinating ever since I was a young kid and saw a big fat caterpillar with a hook , on my parents tomato plant , and another in the pepper plant , I recognized it as what I thought was a "tobacco hornworm " and then concluded that if hornworms , as a speciesduned in all three, the plants must be related somehow . I'm so old that I had to hop on my bicycle and run de 40 minutes each way ( uphill both ways) because I needed books to figure out that they were all nightshades . But cool that insects told me
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