slide [1] Abundant Life1 The diversity of life in the biosphere O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there heere? ---William Shakespeare The Tempest, Act V Scene 1 1 Illustration from http://www-white.media.mit.edu/~shers/animals85.gif Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [2] Outline Introduction The “nonsense” question: What are the limits to natural variation? The Cambrian Explosion of animal body plans The Creation of Land Plants The Creation of Land Animals Return to the Nonsense Question What is Kind? Limits of natural variation Example: Radiolarians Example: Trilobites Denton’s Abundant Life Hypothesis Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [3] Cambrian Explosion Start is defined by appearance of burrows2 that are clearly caused by animals. - Currently about 590 My ago. Trichophycus fossil burrows that define the start of the Cambrian age3 The fossil burrows are known as Trichophycus pedum. In 1991 the International Subcommission on Cambrian Stratigraphy officially set the Cambrian boundary at the first appearance of these fossils. See http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/palaeontologie/Stuff/casu8.htm. 2 3 from http://www.emory.edu/COLLEGE/ENVS/research/ichnology/ Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [4] Earliest Animal Fossils early Cambrian -- 570 My Trilobite Bergeroniellus spinosus Lena River Gorge, Siberia (Note dime to indicate size)4 Graphics/Trichophycus.jpg: “a horizontally to obliquely oriented burrow presumed to be produced by a large arthropod” 4 From http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthropoda/ trilobita/bergeroniellus.jpg. Lena River Gorge, Siberia, Early Cambrian. See http://www.ucmp.berkeley.ed/cambrian/aldan.html. Photo by Jere H. Lipps. Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [5] Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [6] “Fossils of trilobites appeared suddenly in the geological record …. If you are tempted by the word “dramatic” then this is the occasion where you could be forgiven for weakening. When you visit a rock section spanning the right bit of the early Cambrian—and there are such profiles in Newfoundland, Mongolia and Siberia—there will be not a sniff of a trilobite as you work your way upwards from one bed to its successor…Then, quite suddenly, a whole Profallotaspis or an Olenellus as big as a crab will pop out into your waiting hands as you split the rock. These are trilobites with lots of segments and big eyes: striking things, not little squitty objects.…You are tempted to cry out: ‘bang!’ And as you continue to collect a foot or so higher into younger strata, the first trilobite will be joined by others, maybe half a dozen or so different species, and all individually distinctive ones at that.” Richard Fortey, Trilobite!5 Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [7] Richard Fortey, Trilobite! Eyewitness to Evolution, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, p.121. 5 Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [8] Cambrian: First Appearance of Animals What distinguishes Plants (Kingdom Plantae) and Animals (Kingdom Animalia)? Both Plants and Animals:6 • Many cells • Reproduce sexually with sperm & egg • Develop from embryo (They differ in HOW they form the sperm and egg) Only Animals: A Genetic Body Plan7 homeobox genes = turn on/off gene production homeotic genes = distinguish regions of cell/body left/right, front/back (dorsal/ventral) top/bottom (anterior/posterior) hox genes = both homeobox and homeotic. => Animals have hox genes. Animals cannot produce all their own food from simple chemicals. Lynn Margulis, Five Kingdoms, 3rd. Ed. W.H.Freeman & Co. 1998, Chapter 3 & 5 introduction. 7 Colin Tudge, The Variety of Life, Oxford, 2000, p183. 6 Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [9] (Most plants can, except for nitrogen) Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [10] Common Animal Phyla Originating in Cambrian Explosion8 designation Name Name Meaning Examples A-2 Porifera porous, spongy sponges A-3 Cnidaria nettle (stinging) corals, hydras, medusas A-13 Rotifera wheel (beating cilia “wheel appear rotating) animacules” A-19 Chelicerata claw (Arachnida = scorpions class Arachnida goddess Arachne) spiders A-20 Mandibulata chewing jaw termites, insects A-21 Crustacea shelly, crusty lobsters, crabs A-22 Annelida ring (segments) earthworms A-26 Mollusca soft body clams, octopus A-30 Brachiopoda “arm leg” tentacles lampshells A-34 Echinodermata sea urchin skin starfish A-37 Craniata brain fish, amphibians, (all modern reptiles, birds, species are mammals vertebrates) Note: A-19 to A-21 are the Arthropods = “joint-footed” 8 Following the nomenclature of Lynn Margulis et al, Five Kingdoms, 3rd Ed. W.H. Freeman, 1999. This nomenclature includes all vertebrates as Craniata; some extinct vertebrate species did not have Crania. Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [11] The Burgess Shale Fossils in the Mid-Cambrian (about 545 My)9 Redrawn from Simon Conway Morris & H.B. Whittington, "The Animals of the Burgess Shale" Scientific American, 1979. Also in Rich&Fenton The Fossil Book, p 115. 9 Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [12] Scanning Electron Micrograph of an Early Cambrian bivalve Crustacean fossil10 10 http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/palaeontologie/cscpic/phosg.jpg SEM micrograph of a hesslandonid phosphatocopine. Oblique view. D. Walossek, Ulm. From the web page “Life in the Cambrian” at http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/palaeontologie/Stuff/casu8.htm. Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [13] Moving to Land Plants Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [14] Problems Solved by Plants • How to propagate and survive in extreme conditions. Solutions: Spores, pollen, seeds. • How to avoid drying out in the atmosphere? Solutions: Cutin (waxy layer on leaves), Stomata (openings in leaves) • How to get water and nutrients to plant extremities? Solutions: roots and vascular system Note: solution implies a complex control of solutes and a mechanism for water transport. • How to support weight in air, maintain rigid form Solution: root system to anchor in ground; cellulose for low plants (osmotic pressure); woody tissue for taller plants. Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [15] Moving to Land Animals Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [16] The Question of “kind” - How much variation can occur naturally? Two examples with long fossil records: • radiolarians • trilobites Working Hypothesis: Variation within a kind is mainly the result of random changes within a stable genetic pool. Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [17] Radiolarians • single-celled marine animal with hard (calcium or silicon) skeleton surrounding the nucleus and reproductive apparatus of the cell. • food-gathering with gelatinous pseudopods that project through skeleton. • free-floating (planktonic) distributed worldwide. • fossils found from Cambrian to Present. QuickTime™ and a Photo - JPEG decompressor are needed to see this picture. Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [18] A typical radiolarian11 11 http://www.pbrc.hawaii.edu/bemf/microangela/mradiolo.jpg. One of a series of paintings by MicroAngela. Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [19] Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [20] Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [21] “The skeleton of the Radiolaria is developed in such exceedingly manifold and various shapes, and exhibits at the same time such wonderful regularity and delicacy in its adjustments, that in both these respects the present group of Protista excels all other classes of the organic world. For, in spite of the fact that the Radiolarian organism always remains merely a single cell, it shows the potentiality of the highest complexity to which the process of skeleton formation can be brought by a single cell. All that has been brought to pass in this direction by single tissue-cells of animals and plants does not attain the extremely high stage of development of the Radiolaria.” Ernst Haeckel, Challenger Report on Radiolaria (1887)12 12 Ernst Haeckel, Zoology, Vol XVIII Report on the Radiolaria collected by H.M.S. Challenger, 1887, in Report on the Scientific results of the Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger during the years 1873-1876. Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [22] Snow Crystals Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [23] Snowflakes13 Fractal Plant Shapes These images taken from Michael Barnsley, Fractals Everywhere, Academic Press, 1988. 13 from http://www.lowtem.hokudai.ac.jp/~frkw/english/ Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [24] Fractal Arctic Scene14 14 http://www.cognitivedistortion.net/G2/landscapes/LS6/Arctic_Sea/Arctic_Sea.jpg Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [25] Trilobites First appearance about 570 My ago. Middle Cambrian Trilobite (540 My)15 • Compound eyes • Articulated and segmented exoskeleton • Jointed legs with gills • Segmented antennae 15 Paradoxides gracilis Jinetz, Bohemia. approx. 4.5" long. Plate I, Levi-Setti Trilobites Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [26] Trilobite Internal Body Parts Trilobite body parts16 • Alimentary canal - mouth, stomach, anus • Respiratory system with gills • Circulatory system with heart • Muscle system • Simple nerve network - brain, nerve cord, and ganglia • Sensory system - antennas, compound eyes, touch, sensory pits (smell) 16 From http://www.aloha.net/~smgon/trilointernal.htm, Trilobite Internal Anatomy. Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [27] How do we know this Internal detail? - Pyratized (= fools gold) fossils with soft body details that show up in xrays. “Some trilobites discovered near Rome, New York have had the hard and soft-body parts replaced by finely crystaline pyrite (FeS2). They display finely detailed external appendages and gills. X-rays reveal fine details of muscular, digestive, circulatory, visual systems. As a result of this providential gift, much is known about trilobite anatomy despite the fact that they have been extinct for 250 million years.” Rolf Ludvigsen, Fossils of Ontario17 Rolf Ludvigsen, Fossils of Ontario Part 1: the Trilobites, Royal Ontario Museum, 1979, p22. 17 Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [28] Trilobites from Cambrian to Permian Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [29] The Trilobite eyes Kinds of Trilobite eyes: • Holochroal -- packed cones of silica crystal prisms Holochroal eye • Schizochroal - round compound silica lenses Schizochroal eye Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [30] Devonian Phacops with Schizochroal eyes 18 Descartes’ lens (left) and trilobite Crozonaspis (right) Huygens’ lens (left) and trilobite Dalmanitina (right) 18 Plate 201 Levi-Setti photo by megalomanicus (Struve), Alnif Morocco Abundant Life author. February Devonian Phacops 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [31] How was the Schizochroal eye created? Possibility 1: Direct Creation Possibility 2: Natural Development - I am inclined to favor Possibility 2. - Mechanism: Paedomorphosis = Retention of juvenile features in the adult. Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [32] Abundant Life Georges Cuvier (early 1800’s) “doctrine of Plentitude” Michael Denton Nature’s Destiny, Chapter 13 “The Principle of Plentitude” Example: Eyes. “It appears that every possibility has been realised in the design of image-forming optical devices.” • Amorphous (hard, soft) and crystalline lenses • Simple and compound eyes (multiple lenses) • Focusing and non-focusing • Reflective and refractive lenses • Simple and compound lenses with multiple refractive indices • Image formation by focussing and by scanning • A myriad of non-image forming light sensors • Sensitivity to various parts of the light spectrum • Passive and active (light generating) eyes --- This principle carries through in all of biology. “A comprehensive array of solutions” --- Not just restricted to “higher” plants and animals Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [33] Example: Cnidaria stingers. Conclusions • Creation of Plants and Animals is a story of Gradual buildup of the ecosystem and Orderly introduction of new species as soon as the environment is ready. Examples: - Gradual migration to dry land e.g. Fish -> Amphibians -> Reptiles unprotected -> protected embryos e.g. small plants -> large plants vascula, roots, woody plants waxy leaves, coated seeds - Microbe feeders before predators - Plants before (or with) plant eaters ==> It doesn’t “prove” natural evolution. • Complex species appear Suddenly in the fossil record without the precursors or orderly development that evolution requires. Examples: - Animal Body Plans in general - Trilobites & Crustaceans in particular • There is evidence for Anticipation of future need in the appearance of new body plans. Examples: - Trilobite & Crustacean armor Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [34] - Trilobite compound lens eye. Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM slide [35] Conclusions (Continued) • With an adequate gene pool, natural change can produce a wide range of body shapes and features. Examples: - Radiolarian skeletons - Trilobite eyes (many varieties) • Abundant Life: - The created world uses “every” way to solve the problems of life. • A stable ecosystem requires Complete Recycling - When absent, the system loses balance Examples: - Carboniferous age (must recycle carbon) - Age of dinosaurs (??) • The “Nonsense Question” needs answering. “What are the limits of natural development?” - There is lots of work to do to answer this. - The answer can be found in: - God’s fossil record of his creative activity + A deep understanding of genetics and embryonic development. ** I believe that God Intends us to find the answers, and it is for us to do the hard work. Abundant Life February 16, 2016 09:13 AM