UNIT 1

Definition of animal: pluricellular, heterotrophic, diploid organisms, characterized by

anisogametes and the formation of a zygote that after cellular division forms a blastula.

UNIT 2
Adaptation: phenotypic variant of a trait that results in the largest fitness among a set of
other variants of the same trait in a given environment

Convergent evolution: when similar structures (form and function) that are not inherited
from a common ancestor evolve in different ways in unrelated animals living in similar
environments.

Microevolution: describe processes and mechanisms which determine the dynamics of

allele frequencies in populations (mutation, natural and sexual selection…). Linked with
macroevolution (speciation; microevolutionary processes originating new species).

Macroevolution: the same but in huge time scales.

Specie concept:

-Members of a species should all descent from common ancestral population.

-A species should be the smallest group of individuals sharing a common ancestor
that can be clearly differentiated from others.
-Reproductive isolation with members of other species.

Types of speciation:

-Allopatric
-Peripatric
-Parapatric
-Sympatric

Anagenesis is the gradual evolution of one species into another. Cladogenesis is the
evolution of different species from an ancestral one. Both mechanisms provoke evolutionary
changes as an acumulative process.

UNIT 3 – Animal distribution

Basic kind of distributions:

-Endemic (endemisms): species restricted to a certain region

-Cosmopolitan: when they occupy most of the planet’s surface
-Disjunct (disjunctions): two or more related taxa are distributed in widely separated areas
 Vicariance consists of physical or environmental changes through history that have
changed the conditions along originally continous distributions, making them disjunctions.

UNIT 4 – Animal taxonomy and systematics

Cladograms → Internal nodes and terminal nodes

-1. Monophyletic taxon: group with most recent common ancestor and all descendants of that
ancestor.
-2. Paraphyletic taxon: group with most recent common ancestor of all members of a group and
some but not all descendants of that ancestor.
-3. Polyphyletic taxon: group whitch don’t include the most recent common ancestor of all
members of a group; this condition requires that the group has had at least two separate
evolutionary origins.

Homology, analogy and synapomorphy.

UNIT 5 – Animal reproduction

Asexual reproducction