How are animals/organisms with short lifespans such as mayflies not constantly mutating/evolving?
In: Biology
Mayflies don’t have a particularly short lifespan, it’s a year. Most of that is spent underwater in the nymph form. It’s only the mating/egg laying imago form that dies within a day of emerging.
https://cdn.britannica.com/63/102463-004-913EB0FD/Life-cycle-mayfly.jpg
They have evolved into a local optimum. This means that any small change in their genes would be for the worse and that such lines would become extinct or mutate back. There is always some genetic variation but it is clustered around an optimal sequence. Evolution does still happen but it requires big mutations to find an even more optimal species or the environment would have to change making their current species less suited.
They are. Though likely big changes in their evolution would take longer than a normal human lifespan to notice a visible difference. Just like how humans have looked generally the same for a few million years.
They are. That’s why organisms with rapid reproduction cycles are often used to study evolution. That’s why bacteria and viruses are able to change and adapt so quickly. That’s why antibiotic resistance is such a quickly evolving matter.
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