Final Exam (Unit 1 and 3) Flashcards
Evolution
Derived from the Latin word “evolutio” meaning “unravelling” or “unfolding”
what is evolution
Decent with modification
what isn’t evolution
- Does not include the developmental change in the life of an organism.
- It does not proceed along some predictable course.
who proposed that populations of organisms evolve over time
- Anaximander in Ancient Greece (6th Century B.C.) believed that species were formed from water, and that humans and other animals descended from fish.
- Empedocles (5th century B.C.) proposed that heads, limbs and other organs were joined at random and only some combinations were fit for survival.
- Plato (4th century BC) believed that each natural type of object in the observed world is an imperfect manifestation of the ideal
- Aristotle: Student of Plato and elaborated on his ideas.
- Envisioned a static world in which a Deity had created fixed essences, which are templates for all species
- Gradation from inanimate to barely animate through plants and invertebrates up to “higher” forms in a Scala Naturae or Scale of Nature, moving from least perfect to most perfect
- Christianity expanded on this: God’s creation must follow a plan- the ladder of nature, or Great Chain of Being
- Permanent and unchanging since change would imply imperfection in the original creation
where did species originate
- Theory of Special Creation
- Created by a deity.
- Species were created independently of one another.
- Species remain unchanged since their creation.
- Variability within a species is minor/limited.
- Predicted that the creation event occurred 26 October 4004 B.C. at 9:00
- Theory of Evolution-descent with modification
- Idea was proposed by several people in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802). - Laws of Organic Life (1794-1796).
- “Integrative” approach.
- “The final course of this contest
among males seems to be, that the
strongest and most active animal
should propogate the species which
should thus be improved.”
-Lamarckism
- Proposed: All species are derived by gradual change from other species.
- Mechanism: Inheritance of acquired characteristics.
- Organs become improved if used a lot, reduced to vestiges from disuse.
- This mechanism required that bodily changes have a way to be registered in the germ cells
- “The giraffe lives in places where the ground is almost invariably parched and without grass. Obliged to browse on trees it is continually forced to stretch upwards. This habit sustained over long periods of time by every individual of the race has resulted in the forelimbs becoming longer than the hind ones, and the neck so elongated that a giraffe can lift his head to a height of six meters without taking his forelimbs off the ground” (1809)
Carl Linnaeus
- Swedish naturalist.
- Classified plants based on morphology into Classes, Orders, Genus and Species.
- Introduced a system of binomial nomenclature for species identification (Systema Naturae 1735).
- Individual species names consist of a genus name and a species name.
- Remains the standard even today
- Established the framework for modern classification (the binomial system e.g., Homo sapiens) in Systema Naturae in the hope of discovering the pattern of God’s creation
Catastrophism vs uniformitarianism
- Catastrophism- Biblical interpretation of the history of the earth.
- Earth was created by supernatural means approx 6000 years b.p.
- Had been affected by a series of catastrophic events such as the biblical flood
- Uniformitarianism – More modern view of the earths history.
- Earth is unimaginably old.
- Landforms present today are the result of geological processes that are still occurring.
- Ideas originated from the work of James Hutton-late 1700s.
Charles Lyell
- Published “Principles of Geology” (1830-1833)
- Challenged the prevailing belief regarding the earth’s history and age.
- Argued the earth is hundreds of millions of years old.
- And…earth’s geology was created by natural forces including earthquakes, volcanoes, winds, rain, etc.
Charles Darwin
- Observations from South America:
- Fossils of animals in S America that were no longer extant in the region (e.g. Thoatherium).
- So…species can/do go extinct
- Fossils of animals in a region were different from modern day equivalents (e.g., armadillos and sloths).
- So.. species have ancestors, and change through time.
- In traveling from N to S, one species was replaced by a similar, but slightly different species (e.g., Rhea).
- So.. species differ across space/geographical distance
- Vestigial Organ- “functionless or rudimentary version of a body part that has an important function in other, closely allied species”
- Artificial selection- over time humans have modified many species to suit their needs through careful breeding programs.
- e.g., Shetland pony, Arabian horse, many plants
- So..humans have ‘caused’ the evolution of several species from a single ancestral species.
- e.g. many sp. of domestic fowl derived from red jungle fowl
- In 1838 he read “An Essay on the Principle of Population” by Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834).
- Discussed how the reproductive
capacity of the human population
exceeds the food supply available
nourish the expanding population. - Therefore, humans compete
among themselves - This struggle would also exist in nature and would constitute a ‘natural’ selection process.
- This process would occur without a plan or conscious.
- Prepared an essay of his ideas in 1844.
- Showed essay to Lyell who urged him to write a book.
- Darwin did not publish his ideas until much later…
Fossil records
- Species go extinct
- Law of succession
- Transitional forms
- Environmental change
what is homology
- The study of likeness.
- “The same organ in different animals under every variety of form and function”
Wallace
- From a working class family.
- Father died when he was young.
- He worked with his brother as a surveyor following schooling for 4 years.
- Met Henry Walter Bates who introduced him to botany.
- The 2 travelled to S. America and collected for 4 years.
- Lost all their collections in fire during return voyage in 1852
- Also read essay by Malthus
- During a fit of Malarial fever he also came to the idea of natural selection.
- Wrote an essay “On the Tendencies of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type” and sent it to Darwin to review
Darwins observations of natural selection
Observation 1:
- potential exponential increase of populations
Observation 2:
- steady state (stability of populations)
Observation 3:
- heritable variation in organisms
Deduction 1:
- struggle for existence among individuals
Deduction 2:
- differential survival (natural selection)
Mendel
- Austrian monk and mathematics teacher.
- Conducted extensive experiments in plant hybridization 1856-1863 using common peas (Pisum sativum).
- Credited for discovering the laws of heredity (basis for all modern genetics).
- Significance of his work not really recognized until 1900s
- Traits are passed from parent to offspring through the gametes in specific discrete units, or factors.
- These factors can be assorted differently in different individuals.
- These factors are now called genes.
- Individuals have 2 copies of each gene.
- One received from each parent.
- Alternate forms of the gene are called alleles
First Principle - Principle of segregation
- Each gamete (egg or sperm) can carry only one allele from a parent at a given gene
Second Principle – Independent Assortment
- The segregation of the members of one pair of alleles occurs independently of of the segregation of the members of another pair of alleles during gamete formation
Evidence for decent with modification
- microevolution
- speciation
- macroevolution
- common ancestry
- age of earth and life
what is microevolution
- Selective breeding
- vestigial structures
what is speciation
what is macroevolution
-extinction and succession
- transitional forms
what is common ancestry
- Descent with modifications contends that all organisms have a single common ancestor.
- Homology is a crucial line of evidence
- Traits are homologous if they are derived, evolutionarily and developmentally, from the same source structure
-structural and molecular homology
what is age of earth and life
- Uniformitarianism (Hutton/ Lyell) vs. Catastrophism
- Geologists recognized that considerable amounts of time were required to build mountains and create the geological strata observed in nature.
- Based on geological evidence, it was recognized that a 6000 year old Earth (Arch Bishop Ussher) and catastrophism were not consistent with accumulating evidence
theory of evolution by natural selection postulates
- Individuals in a population are different from one another.
- The differences are, at least in part, passed from parents to offspring.
- Some individuals are more successful at surviving and reproducing than others.
- The successful individuals are not merely lucky; instead they succeed because of the variant traits they have inherited and will pass to their offspring.
simplified
- Living things produce more offspring than can be supported
- There is a constant struggle for existence.
- Individuals in a population vary in their phenotypes.
- Some of this variation is heritable (genotypes).
- Those individuals best adapted to current conditions are most likely to survive and reproduce themselves
- If these adaptations are heritable, they will be passed on to their offspring.
- Natural selection acts on phenotypes, but only if there is a change in allele frequencies in a population has evolution occurred.
- Population genetics is the study of allele and genotype frequencies and their changes in entire populations
what is fitness
- ability of an individual to survive and reproduce in its environment.
- a relative term, i.e., relative to the fitness of other members of the population.
- May be objectively measured in nature by means including:
1. counting offspring of individuals over their lifetime;
2. observing individuals ability to survive some natural event (e.g., drought)
what is an adaptation
A trait that increases the ability of an individual to survive and reproduce compared with individuals without that trait
what is a trait
any characteristic of an individual ranging from outward appearance (e.g., height) to molecular characteristics (e.g., shape of a protein)
evolution by natural selection
- Requires statistical thinking.
- Natural selection acts on individuals, but evolutionary consequences occur in populations.
- Natural selection acts on phenotypes, but evolution consists of changes in allele frequencies.
- Natural Selection is not forward looking
- Natural Selection acts on existing traits only, but new traits may evolve
- Natural Selection does not lead to perfection.
- Natural Selection is nonrandom, but it is not progressive.
- Natural Selection acts on individuals, not for the ‘good’ of the species