This article basically recounts an occurance in California of a hybrid plant development between the normal every day radish and a weed refered to as the jointed charlock. The assertion is that in the wild, the wild radish variant has taken over and the orginal weed is now gone. This in an observable period of 100 years which is considered amazingly fast in evolutionary terms.
Two implications are drawn from the study cited.
First in terms of conservation the need for a realization that such man-affected change can take place. The question hanging here, in my mind, would be, what they think we need to do practically, or can do?
The second implication is found in this quote from the article,
Perhaps it can, and yet by their definition at the beginning of the article this is apparently a somewhat unusual and accelerated example. What would be the benefit of utilizing such an example as a model if by definition it falls at the edge of the supposed bell curve?"We found that wild radish in California has now become an evolutionary entity separate from both of its parents," said Ellstrand, a co-author of the paper. "It can serve as an excellent model organism for evolutionary studies."
Any thoughts?