Chapter
#29
Evolution
Chapter 29.1 Notes
Adaptation is a trait that makes a living thing
able to survive in its surroundings.
Natural Selection is the process
in which something
in a living thing’s
surroundings
determines
if it will
or will not survive.
• Mutation is a change
in DNA. Mutations
can be helpful,
harmful, or have no
effect.
•
Species is a group of living things that
can breed with others of the same
species and form fertile offspring.
• Fertile being able to reproduce by
forming sperm and egg.
How new species form?
1. Barrier formed that separated members
of a species.
2. Animals live in different environments
3. Groups began to show different traits as
a result of natural selection over time 2
groups become 2 different species.
Difficulty of defining "species" and identifying
particular species
•
•
1.
2.
3.

It is surprisingly difficult to define the word "species" in a way that applies to all
naturally occurring organisms, and the debate among biologists about how to define
"species" and how to identify actual species is called the species problem.
Most textbooks define a species as all the individual organisms of a natural
population that generally interbreed at maturity in the wild and whose
interbreeding produces fertile offspring. Various parts of this definition are there
to exclude some unusual or artificial matings:
Those which occur only in captivity (when the animal's normal mating partners may
not be available) or as a result of deliberate human action.
Animals which may be physically and physiologically capable of mating but do not
normally do so because only their normal mating partners perform the courtship
rituals or some other behavior "correctly".
Animals whose offspring are normally sterile. For example, mules and hinnies have
never (so far) produced further offspring when mated with a creature of the same
type (a mule with a mule, or a hinny with a hinny).
Some hybrids, e.g. mules, hinnies, ligers and tigons, apparently cannot produce
offspring when mated with one of their own kind (e.g. a mule with a mule), but
sometimes do produce offspring when mated with members of one of the parent
species (e.g. a ligon with a lion). Usually in such hybrids the males are sterile, so one
could improve the basic textbook definition by changing "... whose interbreeding
produces fertile offspring" to "... whose interbreeding produces offspring in which
both sexes are normally fertile".
• Primates are mammals with eyes that face
forward, a well-developed cerebrum, and
thumbs that can be used for grasping.
• New-world monkeys have a tail that can
grasp and nostrils that open upward.
Examples howler and spider monkey.
• Old-world monkeys can’t grasp with their
tails, if they have one, nostrils open
downward. Examples baboons, apes,
gorillas, chimpanzees. Humanlike forms 3
million years ago.
• Homo sapiens is the only human life-form
alive today.
• Neanderthal man became extinct they
were shorter than modern humans and
had thicker bones.
Chapter 29.2 Notes
•
1.
2.
3.
4.
Charles Darwin- developed the
modern theory of evolution and
natural selection.
Darwin's Main Points
Living things overproduce
There is variation among the offspring
There is a struggle to survive.
Competition is the struggle among living
things to get their needs for life.
Natural Selection is always taking place.
• Evolution is a change in the hereditary
features of a group of organisms over
time.
• Fossils are the remains of once-living
things.
• Sedimentary rocks- form from layers of
mud, sand, and other fine particles.
Oldest layer 1
Youngest layer
7
• Vestigial structure is a body part that no
longer has a function. Examples third eyelid,
appendixes.
Work Cited
• “Evolution”. May 8, 2007.
http://chnm.gmu.edu/resources/essays/images/EvolutionIntelligentD
esignClimateChange/evolution1.jpg
• “Bee Mutations”. May 8, 2007.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/cfol/images/mutationsfig16.jpg
• “Mutation cartoon”. May 8, 2007.
http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/rmc/lowres/r
mcn9l.jpg
• “Water fowl mutation”. May 8, 2007.
http://exoticwaterfowl.com/Quickstart/ImageLib/silver_woods.JPG
• “Darwin's Finches”. May 8, 2007. http://www.biologyonline.org/images/darwin_finches.jpg
• “Species problem”. May 8, 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species
http://javalab.cs.unibonn.de/research/darwin/images/darwin.jp
g
• “Darwin”. May 9, 2007.
• “Rock Layer”. May 9, 2007.
http://updatecenter.britannica.com/eb/imag
e?binaryId=63386
• “Vestigial structures”. May 9, 2007.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/ar
ea/magazines/tj/images/v14n2_vestigial_s
tructures.gif