Final Flashcards
(116 cards)
What is Homology?
A hypothesis where relationships between physical form comes from a common origin
What are criteria we might use to hypothesize homology between organisms?
Position (similar muscles in similar places)
Development (limb buds look similar across organisms and diversify into things such as fins and legs later on)
What is Meckel-Serres Law of Development?
Scala naturae; through development, every organism passes through the adult form of the lower organism (ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny)
What is Karl Ernst von Baer’s Law of Development?
General characters of a large group appear earlier in embryo than specialized characters; so instead of passing through the forms of “lower” forms, it separates
What is Darwin’s laws of development?
Embryology is evidence of descent; shared traits due to common ancestry
What are the 6 steps to “build an animal?”
- Cleavage
- Blastula formation
- Gastrulation
- Neurulation
- Somitogenesis
- AP Patterning (Conferring Identity)
Explain what happens during Cleavage
- Cleavage is the first step of development -> getting to more than one cell.
- A zygote is a single diploid cell
Explain the two types of cleavage
Holoblastic: Total cleavage where cell division happens across the entire zygote (lampreys, mammals, amphibians)
Meroblastic: Partial cleavage where the embryo forms on top of undivided yolk (birds, reptiles, hagfish)
Describe what happens during the second step, the formation of a Blastula
Axes and cell fates are determined.
- Zygotic transcription begins
- Breaking up of the radial symmetry occurs via cortical rotation from sperm, thus establishing an ORGANIZER!
Explain what an “organizer” is during the blastula formation; NOT gastrulation yet
The organizer is different for different organisms, but the gray crescent is important for determining dorsal vs ventral sides
Describe what happens during Gastrulation (step 3)
The separation of outside versus inside occurs
- Germ layers are created (the 3 layers), and the archenteron (“old gut”) folds in due to the blastopore inducing the cavity
- The organizer is what emits signals for gastrulation! Has different names for different organisms (The Shield for fish, hensen’s node for birds, the node for mice)
Explain what happens during step 4, Neurulation
Getting the neural ectoderm inside (we need our neural tube and brain inside)
During Neurulation, the Neural Crest comes into play. Explain some of the important points on the Neural Crest
- Neural Crest cells migrate down channels: They follow the semaforin attractant molecule
- Neural Crest cells differentiate and form gill arches, cartilage, pigment, sensory neurons, smooth muscle, and adrenal cells
- Placodes & Lateral Lines
What are placodes?
Thickenings of the ectoderm for sensory
What are lateral lines?
- Occur in all anamniote vertebrate clades (Lamprey, sharks, fish)
- Neuromast network
- It is a placode that migrates along the entire body; neural crest might be signaling for the lateral line movement (not proven yet)
Explain what happens during Somitogenesis, the 5th step
The mesoderm is patterned (muscles)
- Body segmentation, with differentiation happening and then somitogenesis moving anterior to posterior
- There is a somitogenesis clock (self-regulating)
Explain what happens during AP Patterning (step 6)
Hox genes are highly conserved and give each segment identity (determines placement of axial structures and limbs)
- Basically confers anterior and posterior identity to the somites we just formed
Explain the Phylotypic Stage
Early on in development, embryos are robust and incredibly variable.
Later on in embryo development, they are constrained to certain forms (chickens need to look like chickens etc.), but highly variable/specialized
But, somewhere in between these two stages, you need a set of basic genes (like hox genes being highly conserved) -> conserved gene expression
Explain how the somitogenesis clock builds diversity
Fate switching (slower in short bodies, faster in snakes)
What is systematics?
The scientific study of the kinds and diversity of organisms and all relationships among them = Diversity AND organization of diversity! It is predictable and retrievable
Explain nested versus exclusive hierarchies (regarding trees)
Exclusive: Linear progression with each rank being its own thing (like military ranks -> a Seargent is not also a private, corporal, etc anything lower)
Nested: Sounds like the name, more specialized groups are contained in larger wider groups
What is catastrophism?
Everything created is how it is; there is NO descendant species (they are all fixed)
Homology vs Analogy
Homology: Common ancestry
Analogy: Same function, convergence
What is cladistics?
Technique for characterizing a hierarchy of groups