Evolution Exam 1

• • Georges-Louis Buffon
  • species arise as distinct entities
  • diverse environments → new varieties
• • Georges Cuvier
  • extinction
• • James Hutton & Charles Lyell
  • earth transformed gradually
• • William Smith
  • first geological map
• • Jean Baptiste-Lamarck
  • species evolve through natural processes
  • life constantly generated
  • adaptation through inheritance of acquired changes
• Jemmy Button

  • Fuegian captive that is converted to an English man (Tierra del Fuego) , is later converted back into primitive
• Malthus

  • population capacity (human grow geometrically and resources grow arithmetically)
• Anne Elizabeth Darwin

  • Darwin’s daughter
  • contracted scarlet fever and undergoes Darwin’s therapy, she ended up dead
• • Sir Francis Darwin
  • scientist, plant phototropism
• • Charles Waring Darwin
  • down syndrome?
  • died of Scarlet Fever, just days prior to Linnean Society Meeting
• • George Howard Darwin
  • astronomer and mathematician
  • plumian professor of astronomy and experimental philosophy at Cambridge
  • barrister-at-law
• Alfred Russel Wallace

  • sent Darwin his manuscript about natural selection
  • Darwin thinks Wallace write better than him
• Homologous trait: similar because of inheritance from a common ancestor
• Synapomorphies (shared derived traits)
• • Lord Kelvin (William Thomson)
  • Heat conduction estimate for age of the Earth (20-100 million years)
  • wrong bc heat convection is the more accurate method of prediction (Perry fixed him)
• Darwin’s Allies

  • Thomas Huxley
  • Zoologist, Agnostic, Darwin’s bulldog
• • P.T. Barnum
  • The missing link between evolution
  • half ape half man (Zip the Pinhead)
• Hadean

  • formation of Earth, 4.55byo to 4byo. Earth bombarded by large ET objects, making life impossible
  • Late Heavy Bombardment: seed the Earth with organic molecules
• Archean

  • Chemical Signatures
  • Cyanobacteria
  • 2a-methyl-hopanes
  • Eukaryotes
  • Steranes
  • Rises in oxygen Level
• Proterozoic Eon

  • Eukaryotes appear, few with hard parts
  • Oldest animal fossils 650 Ma (sponges)
  • Ediacaran fauna
  • Diverse and unique animals dominated the oceans, some are hard to place taxonomically
• Phanerozoic (Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic)
• • Paleozoic
  • Chordates first appear ~515 mya
  • Oldest terrestrial plant fossils are 475 Ma
  • Fungi appear ~400 Ma
  • First invertebrate date to 480 Ma
  • Oldest tetrapod fossils 370 Ma
• • Mesozoic
  • Mammals evolved from synapsids ~ 150 Ma
• • Cenozoic
  • Land dominated by mammals and flowering plants
  • Mammals diversified after dinosaurs went extinct ~65Ma
  • Whales, bats, and primates all emerged around 50 Ma
  • Birds: ~150Ma
  • Flowering Plants: ~132 Ma
  • Insects: ~400Ma
• Polytomy- when all descendants evolved at the same time, or that we don''t have resolution due to insufficient data
• Homoplasy- similar character state but not due to common descent