LEC. 1/2 - Formation and early history of earth/Living fossils and DNA records Flashcards
When was earth formed?
4.5 BYA
Describe the environment of Earth 4.5 BYA?
inhospitable bc there was no O2, water was a vapour and it was hot
When did the first cellular life appear?
4 BYA - end of Hadean
What are the 3 theories on how the first cell arose?
- surface origin
- subsurface origin
- RNA world
What is the surface origin theory?
spontaneous membrane-enclosed structure from primordial organic-inorganic soup
What is the subsurface origin hypothesis?
interaction between ocean water (cold and acidic) and hot water beneath ocean (alkaline)
What are the 3 key aspects of the subsurface origin hypothesis?
- H2S + H2 are beneath ocean and are a constant energy supply, but on surface there’s only iron
- sulfides + iron interact to produce metal precipitates
- metal precipitates catalyze formation of amino acids, sugars (basis for formation of macromolecules)
What is the RNA world hypothesis?
- in the self-replicating system, the first molecule was RNA (entrapped)
- RNA catalyzed first simple peptides that coated minerals (first semipermeable membrane)
What is the correct order of events according to the RNA world theory?
- amino acids, nucleotides, and sugars form
- RNA catalytic world + self-replicating RNA
- RNA catalysis makes makes complex proteins
- DNA replaces RNA
- lipid appears, and entrapped proteins (DNA and RNA)
- LUCA appeared
- LUCA diverges into bacteria and archaea
How do we know that Bacteria and Archaea branched from LUCA?
structure of their lipids
- bacteria lipids are ester bond
- archaea lipids are ether bond
What is the key event that happened at the beginning of the Archaean era?
LUCA splits to Bacteria and Archaea
When was the first methanogenesis developed?
3.9 BYA
After methanogenesis was developed, which type of organisms developed?
anoxygenic photosynthetic (purple and green bacteria)
At 3.2 BYA, what did purple and green bacteria primarily consume?
H2S
What other type of organism formed alongside anoxygenic photosynthetic organisms?
H2 oxidizing organisms
At the end of the Archaean era (2.8 BYA), what key organism developed?
cyanobacteria
What was the name of the key event that signified the end of the Archaean event?
oxygenic event led by cyanobacteria
What did cyanobacteria react with and what happened to cyanobacteria itself when this event happened?
when cyanobacteria produced O2, it reacted with iron which made it insoluble in banded iron formation
What is the term that describes iron in banded iron formations?
Ferric (FE3+) - O2 is trapped
During the banded iron formations, when all the iron was exhausted, what happened to the level of oxygen?
increased, Earth becomes oxic
What did the O2 accumulation lead to, 2 BYA? (2 things)
- basis for eukaryotic organisms
- ozone layer forms
What are the 2 theories for how the eukaryotic cell appeared?
- DNA accumulation => nucleus forming; nucleus containing cell ingested chloroplasts and mitochondria
- archaeal was early cell and consumed O2. to make sure it had enough energy, host ingests H2 producing bacteria
How are eukaryotes similar to bacteria?
same type of lipids
How are eukaryotes similar to archaea?
same transcriptional and translational apparatus
What is endosymbiosis?
- chemoorganotrophic bacterium ingest O2 consuming + ATP producing mitochondria
- facultative aerobic organism (host - chemoorganotrophs) ingest chloroplast (O2 is made here)
What are some key pieces of evidence that support the endosymbiotic theory?
- mitochondria and chloroplasts have ribosomes that are prokaryotic type 70S (16S r RNA also same as prokaryotes
- antiobiotics that affect ribosomal function in bacteria inhibit it in mitochondria and chloroplasts
- mitochondria and chloroplasts have DNA in covalently arranged closed circular form (typical for bacteria)
- signs of bacteria also in eukaryotic organelles
What is the main evidence for early microbial life?
stromatolites
What were ancient stromatilites formed by?
phototropic filamentous bacteria
What are modern stromatolites formed by?
phototropic O2 - evolving cyanobacteria
Why do we use DNA to determine evolutionary history?
- record of past evolutionary events
- determines phylogeny
What is phylogeny?
evolutionary history of organisms
What is the significance of r RNA?
- used to build first universal tree of life
- revolutionized understanding of microbial evolution
What did the universal tree of life look like for Haeckel’s hypothesis?
monera on bottom (ancestor to all life forms) and branched out to protists, plants, and animals
What did the universal tree of life look like for Whittaker’s hypothesis?
- monera on bottom (ancestor of protists)
- protists branch out to Fungi, Plants, and Animals
What did the tree of life look like for Woese’s hypothesis?
r RNA + their genes define evolutionary relationships between organisms
Why do we use rRNA to determine phylogeny?
- universally distributed
- functionally constant
- highly conserved (slowly changing)
- good length for explaining deep evolutionary hypotheses