improve to adequacy. Once a trait is developed enough it will level off. For example let us use the idea of elephant tusks. Longer tusks mean it's easy to dig, meaning it's easier to find food during the dry months, meaning better chance to breed. Once all the elephants have tusks long enough it's no long a selector and has no bearing on ability to breed unless the females actively look for longer tusks. At this point, so long as the females don't become selective about it the trait will just level off and all the elephants will have adequate tusk length with little variation. So long as the environment doesn't shift, the tusks shouldn't either.
I used tusks because you can see a lot of examples where the tusks got too specialized and screwed them over.
Ah, but the tusks could still become stronger or more dense, no? They could become used for other means that would assist the animal or they could of no more use in their current environment and evolve away. Evolution is always happening when it comes to life - even when things are being "taken away".
Also the tusk thing is relative. Some become too specialized, true, however, they were one of perfect use in a previous environment. They weren't too specialized until they weren't.
Would the tusks becoming stronger or denser really be useful? It's extra weight in an already horribly unbalanced position. Is it worth the extra muscle mass it would require? Most likely not.
Ah, but the chances of the tusks evolving at the right strength is so unlikely as to be dismissed. It would need adjustment as well whether it be evolution to make them lighter, to make them stronger, or to simply keep them where they are. Not changing is also a form of evolution.
But teeth aren't particularly strong and wouldn't have evolved to be able to support the weight that tusks would have needed to be to be considered tusks. Not to mention complete reconstruction of the bones of the face in order to allow it to expand to the size needed.
you don't need a full reconstruction of the face lol.. and it's not like there isn't PLENTY of room for change... hell just in humans look at how wisdom teeth can come in and totally fuck everything up.
The entire bone structure would need to be changed in order to support the bones. Even if only a minor part of the face was needed to be changed, that's still the tusk changing.
I think like 5 comments ago we both kind of agreed and didn't realize we were arguing different parts of the same idea; just at different rates of change... or something close to that.
I used tusks because you can see a lot of examples where the tusks got too specialized and screwed them over.
Wait, what are we even arguing/talking about?