Reaping the Whirlwind: protein function without stable structure

Technically no, because the “earliest version” of anything is in the past and is therefore not alive. We can compare current versions and infer how they changed from a previous version, either by very lucky access to fossils or perhaps collections over time (the latter limits us to a very tiny slice of evolutionary time), or by careful inference, or by reconstruction (aka resurrection) of potential ancestors. That last approach can really only be done for genes and not for whole organisms.

Nevertheless, the LTEE run by Richard Lenski at MSU was designed from the beginning to allow a particular kind environmental change drive evolution for thousands of generations, while preserving a sample of every generation. This has allowed Lenski and his collaborators to do just what you seem to seek: map phenome onto genome, and track population-level genetic change, over evolutionary time. It’s still a tiny slice of time, but it’s pretty cool.

Another example where we can see species-relevant differences side-by-side is the phenomenon known as a ring species. For other examples of evolutionary change where we have access to the underlying events, see a list I made a while back: ERV evidence for pastor with a lawyer's mind - #50 by sfmatheson

1 Like