Over the eons of our evolutionary changes, our diet became very varied.

经过亿万年的进化变化，我们的饮食变得非常多样化。

And this evolutionary change was a big deal for the plant kingdom.

这种进化变化对植物界来说意义重大。

I know that sounds like a long time, but as major evolutionary changes go, it's basically overnight.

我知道这听起来很长，但是随着重大进化的进行，这基本上就是一夜之间。

This battle plays out over and over again, sparking evolutionary changes in carnivores. which in turn, chanllenges plant eaters.

这样的战斗一次次重演，极大推动了食肉动物的进化。同时也对食草动物提出更大挑战。

And that's when the rate of evolutionary change takes off.

那就是进化变化率开始上升的时候。

So, sometimes evolutionary changes are big and obvious, but sometimes they're almost imperceptibly small.

所以， 有时进化的变化是巨大而明显的，但有时它们几乎是难以察觉的。

And Jason has also discovered that those changes, these evolutionary changes, are not random, they mean something.

杰森还发现那些变化， 这些进化变化， 不是随机的，它们是有意义的。

But how did this big evolutionary change happen?

但这种巨大的进化变化是如何发生的呢？

And in any given environment, it's competition that usually regulates the rate of evolutionary change among living things.

在任何给定的环境中，通常是竞争调节着生物进化变化的速度。

Then, over time, as those niches fill up, competition increases, and the rate of evolutionary change appears to slow down.

然后，随着时间的推移， 随着这些生态位被填满，竞争加剧，进化变化的速度似乎放缓。

Your rate of evolutionary change, at least outwardly, appears to be slow, because you've found a body plan that works.

你的进化变化速度， 至少从表面上看，似乎很慢，因为你已经找到了一个有效的身体计划。

In evolutionary terms, what this means is that the family tree with the fewest number of evolutionary changes is probably the right one.

从进化的角度来说，这意味着进化变化最少的家谱可能是正确的。

As the Triassic wore on, more empty niches were filled, and the rate of evolutionary change, and the appearance of new species, slowed down.

随着三叠纪的过去，更多的空位被填满，进化变化的速度和新物种的出现都放缓了。

They reasoned that while some evolutionary changes involve the loss of genes and aretherefore irreversible, others may be the result of genes being switched off.

他们推论出虽然一些进化的改变包含基因的丢失并因此不可逆，其他改变可能是基因不活动的结果。

Though not always in obvious ways, all of these changes improve people's chance of surviving to reproductive age — that's what drives natural selection, the force behind all these evolutionary changes.

虽然不总是以明显的方式，这些变化都提高了人们达到生育年龄前的存活率——这驱动着自然选择，在背后推动所有进化的力量。

One professor said, our research shows, however, that new innovations can spread like social media memes through insect colonies, indicating that they can respond to wholly new environmental challenges much faster than by evolutionary changes.

一位教授表示，然而，研究表明，新的创新可以像社交媒体模因一样在昆虫群落中传播，这表明它们对全新的环境挑战的反应比通过进化变化要快得多。

In fact, after the non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out, the surviving mammals and birds went through the same rapid burst of evolutionary change, filling the niches left empty by the dinosaurs.

事实上， 在非鸟类恐龙被消灭后，幸存的哺乳动物和鸟类经历了同样快速的进化变化，填补了恐龙留下的空缺。