BIOGEOGRAPHY & EVOLUTION

Biogeography is the study of how the continents moved across the Earth, and how this directly
affects the location of organisms. The breaking up of the supercontinent Pangaea into Laurasia
and Gondwana caused organisms to diverge. When continents collide, species can spread, and
when continents separate the new species move with them.

BIOGEOGRAPHY

At the beginning of the 17th century, the English philosopher Francis Bacon noted that the east
coast of South America and the west coast of Africa looked as though they could fit together like a
jigsaw.

Since then, our knowledge of the structure of the Earth has developed and the theory of
continental drift through plate tectonics continues to be supported by observations of various
phenomenon across the planet. It is now thought that at one time all the continents were
connected in a single landmass – Pangaea. This supercontinent them broke in two to form
Gondwana in the south and Laurasia north of the Equator.
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The theory of continental drift has had a major impact on evolutionary theory because living
organisms were carried on the landmasses.

The distribution of fossils of extinct plants and animals, as well as modern-day species, supports
the theory of continental drift. Some continents have very similar organisms even though they are
separated by large stretches of ocean. Animals that can fly or swim could travel from continent to
continent, but for the rest, continental drift is the only convincing explanation of their distribution.

Continental drift provides a well-supported explanation for the geographical isolation of species
that eventually results in speciation – divergent evolution. Groups of similar species, such as ratites
(flightless birds), and the existence of marsupials on several continents, can be explained by
biogeography. ‘Coincidence’ is simply not a scientific explanation.

AUSTRALIA’S MARSUPIALS

Marsupials are mainly found in Australia and include kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, wombats,
possums and bandicoots. These mammals have pouches and give birth to immature young. Only
two other types of marsupials live outside Australia – the possums and pouched shrews from
South America. Fossil marsupials have been found in North America, South America and Australia,
but none has every been found in Africa or Europe. The present distribution of these animals gives
clues to their evolution. Scientists have inferred that millions of years ago Australia, Antarctica,
South America and Africa formed the supercontinent Gondwana. Africa separated from this land
mass about 100 million years ago and left the other continents joined.
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Marsupials were distributed widely over this remaining land mass. Then the plates that contain
these continents started to separate. The South American plate separated first, and then about 55
million years ago, Australia separated from Antarctica, and drifted northwards towards the equator.
During the slow drift north-wards the climate of Australia became progressively drier. Fossil
records show that during this time marsupials became even more numerous and many different
types evolved. In South America, however, the marsupials decreased in number and diversity,
probably due to the competition from placental mammals such as the ancestors of jaguars. The
very long period of isolation of Australia from other land masses has meant that many different
marsupial species evolved. By studying the distribution of the different types of living organisms
and fossils, inferences have been made to show how the various types of organisms may have
evolved.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

Scientists call a map of all the places where a species occurs the distribution of the species. The
geographical distribution is all the places on the Earth where a particular species is found. When
studying distributions, it is obvious that many unique species occur on isolated islands. With
evolution, you would expect to find unusual species on particular islands because isolation is
necessary before speciation can occur. Darwin noticed that isolated places often have unique
species, and that many species are found only in particular places separated from others by
geographical barriers. Islands often have unique plants and animals because they are limited to
reproducing with species only on that island. We can say that their isolation is a barrier to gene
flow. The island species adapt to their unique environment via natural selection. Without gene flow
from other populations they become more divergent or different over time. If isolation lasts for a
long period of time, then the different populations eventually become different species. Island
speciation can also occur rapidly when a species arrives on an island with many habitats or
lifestyles not filled by organisms already living there. Species begin to take advantage of these.
Unused habitats and lifestyles are known as niches. Over time, the species becomes different
(divergent) from species in other niches. The process of becoming different is called adaptive
radiation. Divergent evolution (adaptive radiation) is illustrated in the diagrams below.
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An example of adaptive radiation is the finches of the Galapagos Islands. Darwin observed that
different islands had different finches and that their differences seemed to be linked to the foods
available on each island.

Darwin noticed that the finches’ beak shapes were adapted to the food that they ate. Large beaks
were used for crushing hard seeds and small beaks were sued for eating soft fruits.

Since Darwin’s time, scientists have investigated the DNA and proteins of the finches and have
shown that the 14 species of finches in the Galapagos are related to the warbler finches in
Ecuador and South America. The evidence suggests that one species of finch arrived on the
islands about 2 – 3 million years ago, and then spread to different islands where there were
different food sources. The different food sources resulted in natural selection for different beak
types, resulting in the evolution of new species.

QUESTIONS

1. A type of tree, called the Antarctic beech, grows in small areas in Papua New Guinea,
Australia’s east coast, New Zealand and the far south of South America. Fossil beech trees have
been found in these countries as well as in Antarctica. How do you account for the distribution of
the Antarctica beech?

When supercontinents were present, the seeds of beech trees must’ve spread towards the areas
which would soon be Australia, South America and Antarctica. The continents then drifted, growing
the Antarctic beech trees in their different environment, natural selection resulted in trees that were
best fit however trees in Antarctica were not able to survive in the unique environment Antarctica
has to offer.

2. The frogs in Australia show their closest evolutionary relationships to frogs in Africa and South
America. How is this possible? Did humans carry them on boats?
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This is possible due to continental drift. Ancestral frogs lived on the same supercontinent but
drifting soon occurred causing these frogs to become isolated in their new individual continent. In
their new separated environment, natural selection selected the best fit frogs and as a result
produced a new species due to the variety of changes in the population. When comparing the frogs
in Australia to the frogs in Africa and South America, it is observed that they came from the same
ancestral species but as a result of natural selection they have evolved.

3. Between 1973 and 2006, scientists studied the ground finch (Geospiza fortis) on the tiny
Galapagos Island of Daphne. The ground finch is a small seed-eating finch with a body mass of
only 20 grams.

In 1976, there was a severe drought. By the end of 1978, the average size of the finch’s beak had
increased.

The graphs below show what happened to the population of finches, food supply and the hardness
and size of the seeds available.

(a) What happened to the finch population after the drought?

The finch population decrease immensely, a year after; slowly picking back up only to decrease
again

(b) What happened to the seed abundance after the drought?

Seed abundance dropped, a year after it rose again

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(c) What happened to the seed hardness and size after the drought?

Seed hardness and size increased immensely, a year after it dropped dramatically

(d) How do the graphs support the conclusion that natural selection had occurred?

Due to the selective pressure (lack of water), the population of the finches decreased rapidly as a
result. The seed hardness and size increased and the amount of seed available decreased also
due to the selective pressure which is shown in the graph. During this process, when the numbers
changed, natural selection selected finches that were fit for the environment and selective against
those who were not fit and therefore decreased their chance of survival which explains the
population decrease. As a year went by, the new generations of finches become more fitter for the
environment until at the end of 1977 when the numbers started to return to its normal state before
the drought occurred. This shows that by 1977, offsprings produced were best fit for the
environment and therefore have evolved from before which shows that natural selection has
occurred.

(e) What was the selective pressure?

The drought; lack of water

4. What does biogeography refer to?

the study of how the continents moved across the Earth, and how this directly affects the location
of organisms.

5. State the name of:

(a) the giant landmass that once made up all of Earth’s land surface.

Pangaea

(b) the two supercontinents.

Gondwana and Laurasia

(c) the supercontinent in which Australia was located.

Gondwana

(d) the other continents in the same supercontinent as Australia.

Africa, South America and Antarctica

6. Suggest the relationship between biogeography and evolution.

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Biogeography acts as evidence which supports the theory of evolution. Biogeography explains how
similar species are located on different continents which can be linked to evolution and how these
similar species have evolved from the same ancestral organism.

7. Look at the map below which shows how similar lungfish are found in South America, South
Africa and Australia. Similar marsupials are found in South America and Australia. Large flightless
birds are found in South America, Africa, Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.

If native marsupials were found in North America, would this disprove the theory of continental
drift? Explain your answer.

No, as the theory of natural selection supports the theory of continental drift. If a marsupial was
found in North America that means that they would also be found all around Laurasia. When the
continents in Laurasia split, the environment of the different continents changed. Marsupials living
in the different continents could not survive due to the rapid change of environment and therefore
become extinct in that area. However, marsupials in North America could have adapted to its
changes and therefore this would still prove the theory of continental drift.

8. Use the fossil record and geological timeline in the diagram below to answer the questions that
follow.
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(a) List the eras from most recent to the least recent.

Cenozoic, Mesozoic, Palaeozoic, Proterozoic, Archaeozoic

(b) List the periods in the Mesozoic era.

Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic period

(c) Which period came first, the Cambrian or the Permian?

Cambrian

(d) In which period are we currently living?

Quaternary period
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(e) Humans are primates. In which era did primates appear?

Cenozoic era

(f) Dinosaurs became extinct about 65 million years ago. Identify the period and era of this time.

Cretaceous period in the Mesozoic era

(g) Humans have been blamed for causing the extinction of many other organisms. On the basis of
the data in the timeline, did they cause the extinction of the dinosaurs? Explain.

No as they weren’t living together at the same time as shown in the timeline above.

(h) Suggest why humans could not have survived 4 billion (4 000 million) years ago.

There was no atmosphere containing oxygen and no food source

(i) Identify the first life forms to appear.

bacteria

(j) Identify the most recent life forms to appear.

primates

(k) List the following life forms in order of their appearance: fungi, birds, worms, insects, primates,
crustaceans.

Worms, crustaceans, fungi, insects, birds, primates

(l) Suggest the difference between land plants and seed plants.

Seed plants reproduce sexually, land plants reproduce asexually

(m) Suggest a reason for the appearance of seed plants and birds around the same time.
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Birds have an increased survival rate since they eat seeds as their main diet which allows them to
continue for many generations as well as the plants since through their faeces it acted as a
pollinator to the plants

(n) Suggest why the term Cambrian explosion is often associated with the Cambrian period.

The Cambrian period marked the stage where many species came about which can be referred to
as an explosion; an explosion of new species

(o) Approximately how old is Earth estimated to be?

4.5 billion years old

(p) Sequence the following into the correct evolutionary order: (1) flowering plants evolve, (2) early
dinosaurs evolve, (3) mammals, flowering plants, insects, fish and birds dominate, (4) bacteria
evolve, (5) all living things are in the ocean; there is a massive increase in multicellular organisms,
(6) most dinosaurs become extinct, (7) greatest mass extinction of all time, (8) dinosaurs dominate
the planet.

Correct Order:

4,5,2,8,7,6,1,3

9. The map below shows the distribution of members of the family Proteaceae, a group of plants
that includes banksias and proteas.

Species of the genus Banksia are found only in Australia and New Zealand. Species of the genus
Protea are native only to South Africa.

(a) Explain why the family Proteaceae has the southern distribution shown.

The family only survived in the supercontinent Gondwana, as this supercontinent separated the
family remained on the new individual continents.

(b) Explain why different types (Banksia and Protea) are found on different continents.
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Due to natural selection, different selective pressures occur on different continents and as a result
different types of Banksia and Protea are found on different continents.

10. The distribution of members of the camel family are shown below.

(a) Explain the worldwide distribution of members of the camel family.

Camels originated from North America and travelled to South America, Asia and Africa which they
now inhabit in.

(b) Explain how the members of the camel family became different.

Due to natural selection. Each different camel family came from one ancestral species, as
supercontinents broke up into different continents the environment changed with it and so natural
selection selected the camels that were most fit for the environment. These most fit camels had a
higher chance to pass on those favourable inherited genes to their offspring for the next
generation. This process continued in each individual continent, where the selective pressures are
different and this is how the members of the camel family became different.