History of life Flashcards

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1
Q

Fossil – physical evidence from an organism that lived in the past. Fossils provide the only direct evidence about:

A

what organisms looked like, where they lived (habitat), when they lived (how old they are), some information on how they lived.

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2
Q

Define fossil record

A

the total collection of fossils that have been found throughout the world.

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3
Q

name the limitations of the fossil record.

A
  • anything that doesn’t live by water or are mostly made of tissue wont fossilize
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4
Q

____________ – organisms that live in areas with active sediment deposition more likely to be fossilized (e.g., beaches, wetlands)

A

habitat bias

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5
Q

_____________ – organisms with hard parts (e.g., bones, shells) or tissues with tough layers (e.g., pollen) are more likely to decay slowly.

A

Taxonomic & tissue bias

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6
Q

___________ – recent fossils are more common than ancient fossils.

A

Temporal bias

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7
Q

____________ – organisms that were abundant, widespread URQUHART, and present for a long time are better represented in the fossil record.

A

Abundance bias

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8
Q

what does Precambrian mean?

A

collective name for first three eons

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9
Q

what does the precambrian include?

A

Hadeon, Achaean, Proteozoic.
4.6 bya –> 542 mya
-most life was unicellular throughout most of this time
- low O2 levels for first 2 billion years after life evolves.

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10
Q

What does the Phanerozoic eon include?

A

3 eras: Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic
542 mya –> present

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11
Q

What is a Niche?

A

The niche of an organism is the functional role that it plays within an ecosystem.

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12
Q

Define Adaptive radiations

A

when a single lineage rapidly diversifies into many desendant lineages with a wide diversity of forms and ecological niches

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13
Q

___________ – favourable new environmental conditions = Ecological opportunity *islands

A

Extrinsic
e.g. adaptive radiation of 150 species of anolis lizards in the carribbean islands

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14
Q

_____ – evolution of innovative morphological, physiological, or behavioural traits

A

Intrinsic
ex.
Flowers – innovative reproduction structure that led to diversification of angiosperms into 250,000 species.
Feathers/wings – innovative morphology (feathers) that gave some dinosaurs the ability to fly. Today there is ~10,000 species of birds.

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15
Q

what does Daushantuo mean?

A

microscopic early animals

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16
Q

Mass Extinction definition

A

Rapid extinction of large number of diverse organisms around the world
-Mass extinction: occurs when at least 60% of species present goes extinct within 1 million years.
-Caused by exceptionally harsh, sudden, temporary changes in the environment (e.g. asteroid collisions, volcanic eruptions)

17
Q

Define Background extinctions

A
  • Normal environmental change
  • Emerging disease
  • Predation/competition
18
Q

Define End-Permian Extinction

A

-The largest mass extinction – 90% of life went extinct.
-Cause is unknown.
-This time period there was a increase of CO2, SO2 = global warming, acid rain, water/ocean acidification
- Increase anoxia.
- Drop in sea levels.
- Low atmospheric O2

19
Q

Define End-Cretaceous Extinction

A

-Due to an impact asteroid, 10km in diameter
-Fireball
-Wipe out dinosaurs (mostly), pterosaurs, marine reptiles.
-*Mammals, birds, crocodiles, amphibians survived