2nd exam Bio 140

CHAPTER 2: Evidences of evolution

1. BIOGEOGRAPHY
The study of the world (or
geographic) distribution of
organisms
Subdivided into Phytogeography
(Plants) and Zoogeography
(animals).
It divided Darwin and Wallace with
strong evidences for the reality of
evolution
Darwins observation on regional
floras
The species that are widespread
tend to be more variable that
species with narrow ranges
2 components of Biogeography
Historical Biogeography certain
distributions of organisms are the
consequence of long term
evolutionary history
Continental drift
Glacial advances and retreats
Sea level changes
Mountain buildings
Ecological Biogeography organisms
distribution are the result of ecological
factors operating at the present time
Including abiotic aspects of the
environment and biotic factors
(e.g. competition, predators)
The species diversity of a higher
taxon in a particular region is often
the result of both of current
ecological factors and of long term
evolutionary factors
Biogeographic facts rely on the following
assumptions:
That a species:
1. has a definite site or region of
origin
2. Achieves a better distribution by
dispersal
3. Become modified and gives rise to
descendant species in the various
regions to which it migrates
Some biogeographic evidences:
Neither the similarity not dissimilarity of the
inhabitants of various regions can be wholly

accounted for by climate and other physical

conditions
- Diversity is not entirely influenced by
climate and environment
e.g. Although monkey from the old world and
new world have similar diets and habitat,
they belong to different groups
New World
South and central
America
Platyrrhini group
Arboreal-tree living

Old World
Africa and Asia
Catarrhini group
Ground dwellers

In Darwins time continental drift was not

yet known
What may have happened; about 30 MYA
some ancestral arthropod (higher
primates) migrated to south America
There they evolved in isolation and gave
rise to descendants now known
Humans are more likely / closely related
to the old world monkeys

Barriers of any kind,______ to face migration,

are related in a close and important manner
to the difference between the production
(organisms) of various groups
- Geographic barriers van be factors in
formation of various species
E.g. Marine species on the eastern and
western costs of South America are very
different
E.g. the frogs subfamilies Mentellinea and
racophoronae diverged when Madagascar
separated from India
Madagascar and India were the first
landmasses to break away from
Gondwanaland
Inhabitants of the same continent or the
same sea are related although the species
themselves differ from place to place
- The plants and animals of each continent
are distinctive; within each continent
organism tend to be more related
e.g. the aquatic rodents of South America
(coypu and Capybara)
More structurally similar and related to
the mountain and grassland rodents of
south America
Less related to the aquatic rodents of
Northern Hemisphere (beaver and
muskrat)

Species on endemic islands show strong

affinities to the nearest mainland
- Island-Continent relation
e.g. Finches of the Galapagos Islands closely
resemble finches on the western Coast of
South America
- They do not resemble those on Cape Verde
Islands on the west coast of Africa
Although oceanic islands have few species,
those they do have and often unique
(endemic) and show relatedness to one
another
- This suggests that endemic species
developed after their mainland ancestor
reached the mainland
-There, one more closely related to another
e.g. Galapagos tortoises
MAJOR PATTERNS OF DISTRIBUTION
1. Endemic Distribution when the
distribution of a taxon is restricted to a
particular geographic region
2. Cosmopolitan distribution
Distribution when a taxon is
distributed worldwide
3. Disjunct when one taxa have gaps in
their distribution
HISTORICAL EVENTS OR FACTORS THAT
INFLUENCE DISTRIBUTION
1. EXTINCTION
The distribution of a species
may have been reduced by the
death of some populations
Or the distribution of a higher
taxon Is reduced by the
extinction of constituent species
e.g. The horse family Equidae originated and
become diverse in North America, but it later
become extinct their (only reintroduced)
e.g. It is the cause of disjunction between
related taxa in Eastern Asia and Eastern
North America
2. VICARIANCE
The appearance of a barrier that
splits the range of species
It divides though no individual
have dispersed to new areas
Can sometimes account for the
disjunct distribution of a species
3. DISPERSAL

When members os a species

move and expand their range; 2
kinds:
1. Range Expansion
movement across expanses
of favorable habitat
2. Jump Dispersal movement
across as an already existing
of barrier
e.g. Cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis) crossed
major barriers unassisted from Africa and
Asia to South America (about 15 years ago)
- Many plant species accidentally brought
from Europe have expanded most of North
America.
- The European starling after its introduction
in New York City in 1896
BIOGEOGRAPHIC REALMS
Inhabited by many characteristics higher
taxa
Taxonomic composition of the biota is
more uniform within certain regions than
between them
Recognized by Wallace and other early
biogeographies
Wallace designated these realms for
terrestrial and freshwater organisms still
widely recognized today
Biogeographic Realms:
Palearctic Temperate and tropical
Eurasia and Northern Africa
Nearctic Northern America
Ethiopian sub-Saharan Africa
Oriental India and Southeast Asia
Australian Australia New Guinea,
New Zealand and nearby island
The realms are the result of Earths
history than of current climate or
landmass distribution
Wallacess line separates islands that
despite their close proximity and similar
climate, differ greatly in their fauna
The islands are on 2 plates that
approached each other only recently and
one assigned to different realms: the
oriented and the Australian.
A biogeographic realm can be divided into
regions of endemism called provinces.
2. FOSSIL RECORD

Provides the most direct evidences for

evolution
Did it show gradual evolution as
Darwin proposed?
~ Yes in many cases
~ But change could also be rapid or
punctuated
Fossils are the remains of
impressions of once living organisms
SOME FOSSIL EVIDENCES:
1. Extinct species most closely resemble
living ones in the same era suggesting
that one had given rise to the other
e.g. The now extinct Glyptodont was
2,000 kg South American Armadillo larger
than the modern Armadillo
2. In rock strata (layers) progressive
changes in characteristics can be seen in
fossils from earlier layers
Fossil records show evolutionary changes
that are:
a) Gradual Change over millions
of years
e.g. Rib number in eight lineage of
trilobites during the Ordovician
b) Rapid Change over
thousands of years
e.g. Changes in the dorsal spring of
stickleback fish
- In marine habitat fishes had
prominent spines that ward off
large predatory fishes
- Fishes that migrated to lakes had
smaller spines. The lake lack of
predatory fish but contain
predatory insects that capture the
fish by grasping their spines
c) Possibly punctuated
(Punctuated Equilibria) a
pattern in which a species
exhibits little as no detectable
phenotypic change over long
periods of time but is interrupted
buy rapid shifts from one
equilibrium state (stasis) to
another
- Refer to both a pattern of change
in the fossil records and a
hypothesis about evolutionary
change
- The hypothesis applied only to
the abrupt appearance of closely
related species not to higher taxa

e.g. Evolution of Lineage of

Ectoprocts or moss animals, based
on morphology.
Methods of Fossilization
I.
Preservation without alteration
1. Preservation by dehydration
e.g Animal remains in extremely
dry conditions (as in deserts) and
in caves
2. Preservation by Burial in
sediments ~hard parts
a) Organic Bone, cartilage, chitin
(exoskeleton)
b) Inorganic Tricalcium
phosphate, calcium carbonate
(corals and mollusks), silica
(sponges, diatoms, protozoan)
3. Preservation through
mummification ~ soft parts
> Imprisonment in ice
(glaciation)
e.g. Pleistocene animals like wooly
mammoths, rhinoceros, sabertoothed tiger
> Preservation in Amber
(formed form hardened resin of
conifers)
e.g. ails and other insects
> Preservation in Acid Bogs
e.g. Irish elk antlers Pete march
7,500 years old, Iron Age human
(Northern Europe)
> Coal Tar pits
II.

Preservation with Alteration

1. Petrification organic parts
hardened to stone through:
a) Perminalization deposition of
minerals (calcium carbonate,
silicon dioxide and iron compound
like pyrites interstices of
organisms)
b) Replacement removal of
original of new compound
(carbonate silica, iron compounds)
> occurs naturally where there is
abundance of mineral containing
water
e.g. Petrified wood in Yellowstone
National Park (USA)
2. Carbonization Hard parts
become carbonized or a film of
carbon is left as impression
e.g. great coal forest of
Carboniferous periods

3. Formation of Replicas
molds and cast imprints
a) Mold imprint of external or
internal form of the skeleton or
body part
b) Cast replica of organism
formed when skeletal or body
part are dissolved and the mold
is filled with sediments
c) Trace Fossils tracks, burrows
coprolites (fossilized excrement)
The Fossil Records
There are approximately 250,000
described fossil species
Less than 1% of species that lived in the
past
Fossil records is extremely incomplete
in several ways:
a. Many periods are represented by
only few sedimentary formations
worldwide.
b. Many lineages are represented at
widely separated time intervals
even if they probably existed in
between intervals
c. Many extinct species of large,
conspicuous organisms were known
from only one or few species and
d. New fossil taxa have been found at a
steady rates, indicating that many
forms have yet to be discovered
Why Fossil Records are RARE?
1. There are many kinds of organisms that
rarely become fossilized because they
are:
a. Delicate
b. Lack hard parts
c. Occupy humid forests where decay is
rapid
2. Sediments generally form in any given
locality very episodically and typically
contain only a small fraction of the
species that inhabited the region.
3. Fossil formation and eventual discovery
require several events to occur:
> Sedimentation
> Solidification into rock without being
eroded metamorphosed subducted.
> Exposure of the rock
> Discovery by paleontologist
4. Evolutionary changes of interest may not
have been captured at the few localities
have the strata form the right time.
e.g. Species A started to evolve new
characteristics while at location A but
fossil record maybe found showing the

characteristics fully formed only in

location B after migrating there.
IMPORTANCE OF THE FOSSIL RECORDS
Provide evidence about the major outlines
of evolution
Provides evidences about the appearance
of extinct organisms
Provides means of making deduction
about the ancestors of living organisms
Provides an actual record of organisms
that once lived, of where and they lived
and the environment in which they lived
Enables one to trace lines of evolutionary
progression
Provides us with the picture of
evolutionary trends.
The origin of higher taxa have been well
documented in the fossil record
> Amphibians
> Birds
> Mammals
> Cetaceans
> Genus Homo
> There showed macroevolution at a gradual
pace
> The decision of whenever to classify
intermediate fossils in one taxon or another
is often arbitrary
3. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
The study of structures of organisms
Morphology may be used
synonymously when referring to
comparative anatomy
Similarities and differences (in
structures)
- Basis for organizing living forms into
related groups and establishing
relationship
- The more similar the structures the
more closely related the organisms
> Structural similarities indicate
common ancestry and common
ancestry implies close relationship
Homologous Organs
- Have the same basis structure in
relationship to other species and with the
same type of embryonic development
- For example, the similarity in skeletal
structure of the arm of a man, the forelimb of
a cat, the fin of a whale and the wing of a
bird

- Indicate a homologous relationship

The greater the number of common
homologous organs, the more recently 2
groups of organisms shared an ancestor
Rudimentary Organs
- Reduced and functionally useless [arts of
plants and animals
Vestiges- Present structures once useful to
the ancestors but in the course of evolution,
got modified due to adaptation to changed
environmental conditions
e.g. Are the vermiform appendix in a man
and the abortive stamens of Cabitae
4. EMBRYOLOGY
Embryological evidence for organic
evolution supports the biogenetic law
which implies that:

During the embryonic development of an

organism, it passes through a series of
changes some of which appear to repeat
at least partially the adult trains of lower
and presumably the most ancient forms
in an abbreviated form, even though the
mature individuals are quite different
Presence of:
a. Tail
b. Gill Slits proof that vertebrates
originate from the sea
Ontogeny individual development
Phylogeny evolutionary development of a
species
E. Haeckel Ontogeny manipulate
Phylogeny
Ontogeny is a replay of the evolutionary
history of the species.