Let's see, where were we? Sorry, my computer options were acting funky with the last post, so I cut it a little shorter than normal and didn't do much editing (as I'm sure is obvious). Still had some good stuff I hope.
I first want to expand on the idea of environmental pressure's role in evolution. For many years, the prevailing understanding was that, because of environmental change, the dinosaurs died out. They just couldn't keep up when food became scarce, because of their massive bulk and caloric requirements, . We now understand that some of their descendants live on in the birds. Dinosaurs didn't die out. They responded to environmental pressure by getting smaller, or more precisely, the smaller dinosaurs survived to pass on their genetics. In my last trip to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, they even had some had some fair sized dinos mocked up with feathers (they had pretty butterflies too, but that's beside the point), again highlighting how difficult the geologic record is to interpret.
Conversely, as the dinosaurs got smaller, mammals (not humans yet) started getting bigger. Calling this a simple predator/prey relationship would probably be oversimplifying, but there is likely some connection. When the big dinos were running things, it paid to be small and quick. Bigger slower creatures probably became lunch. These kinds of chain reactions happen all the time as populations adjust to each other. Think about how certain animals have adapted to human environments, carving out niches for their families in this new terrain (thinking squirrels, deer, mice, ants, racoons, foxes, etc).
These environmental niches are very important when we are devising the interactions between different peoples. If elves take over the forests, dwarfs take the mountain, and humans take the plains, how does that limit each culture? What traits are desirable for surviving in each environment (that they survive there, or moved there to survive)? Do these creatures prey on each other? How does resource availability impact population size/rate of reproduction? When you create a new species, they impact every part of their environment and thus generate pressure.
The second primary part of the initial question was about branchings within the evolutionary family tree. As I said in the previous post, it's tricky to try to detect this happening in the geologic record. We've long searched for "The Missing Link" in human evolution. It would be highly unlikely for branching to happen within a single population, simply because of interbreeding (this was kind of the initial catch for the Sentinels in X-Men, their programming realized that all humans had the potential to produce "Homo superiors"). If a trait is desirable for survival, everyone wants it. Those that don't want it die out. It's been suggested that Neanderthals disappeared because they were absorbed back into the human line (or maybe we murdered them all), though if they were a different species I'm not sure how that could happen (see the definition of "species" in the previous article). To separate the strains, it would be necessary to maintain strict reproductive controls, or some kind of caste system, perhaps with defined roles (elite/labor) providing differentiating environmental pressures maintained through the millennia.
The easiest way to create new branches on the evolutionary tree is by moving a portion of the population into a new environment, or splitting them off onto a whole new landmass altogether (see: Madagascar, Australia, and so on). With significantly different environmental pressures, evolution is more likely to make populations drift apart to fit this novel situation. However, this is not a magic formula. Humans come in all different shapes and sizes after spreading over the
globe a long long time ago (sorry for all the technical terms), but we are all still one species (ah the joys of variety).
One of the tricks to evolution is that it does not depend upon time exactly, but upon generations. The more often a species has little ones, the higher the likelihood for mutation and the higher the rate of response to environmental pressure. This is one of the reasons Biologists like to experiment on insects. Given enough generations, you could easily create creatures in your world who have diverged through evolution. Going the traditional D&D route, giants (and elves) were described as being from different terrains. Maybe they diverged (or were created wholly different by their respective deities). If you're thinking of going the "lost tribe" route where they've evolved
along a different path than their cousins, be careful. That would be a
culture much older than anything we've seen and is probably much more
appropriate to Sci/Fi than Fantasy (because they would probably have
progressed significantly more in the technological realm than
traditional Fantasy over that much time). I'm not sure anyone could say how many generations it takes to make a new species, but you should definitely think more in terms of millennia than centuries.
You could certainly make all of your bipedal creatures distant relations who have been reintroduced after a long separation. D&D, in referring to these groups as different races (and able to breed), certainly suggests this idea. Alternately, they could have been separated long enough to diverge into separate species. Then you could get into some interesting questions about the morality of sexual relations with the other groups (we certainly frown strongly on the idea of sex with monkeys). It's usually how they try to portray those long lived and culturally elite elves who deign to have a relationship with a human, though it's usually employed as a comment on racism. Divergent species would be useful to comment more on how we treat other intelligent animals, or even how we measure intelligence (as we measure intelligence in relation to our application of it). I could certainly see a situation where, once being reintroduced to each other, one of these distant relations subjugates the other (anyone see Planet of the Apes?). Exploring the impact of these choices is a big part of the joy in these exercises.
There was a third part to the question, wherein it was wondered about the agents carrying this genetic information. Would all of these creatures utilize DNA to pass along traits? I'm not sure exactly where the thrust of that was going. There are certainly interesting ideas about hive minds and genetic memory out there, but that doesn't feel like I'm on track? If anyone has a suggestion on this or anything discussed above, please add it in the comments.
Related Article (well, somewhat)
Gender in the natural world - http://sciencemadeeasy.kinja.com/what-can-we-learn-from-the-tree-of-sex-1585353821/+katharinetrendacosta
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