GENERAL BIOLOGY II: Evidences of Evolution

1. Fossil Evidence:

Fossils are a window into the past. They provide clear evidence that evolution has occurred.
Scientists who find and study fossils are called paleontologists. How do they use fossils to
understand the past? Consider the example of the horse, outlined in figure 9.3.29.3.2. Fossils
spanning a period of more than 50 million years show how the horse evolved.

The oldest horse fossils show what the earliest horses were like. They were only 0.4 m tall, or
about the size of a fox, and they had four long toes. Other evidence shows they lived in wooded
marshlands, where they probably ate soft leaves. Over time, the climate became drier, and
grasslands slowly replaced the marshes. Later fossils show that horses changed as well.

 They became taller, which would help them see predators while they fed in tall grasses.
Eventually, they reached a height of about 1.6 m.
 They evolved a single large toe that eventually became a hoof. This would help them run
swiftly and escape predators.
 Their molars (back teeth) became longer and covered with hard cement. This would
allow them to grind tough grasses and grass seeds without wearing out their teeth.

Fossils provide solid evidence that organisms from the past are not the same as those found
today; fossils show a progression of evolution. Fossils, along with the comparative anatomy of
present-day organisms, constitute the morphological, or anatomical, record. By comparing the
anatomies of both modern and extinct species, paleontologists can infer the lineages of those
species. This approach is most successful for organisms that had hard body parts, such as shells,
bones or teeth. The resulting fossil record tells the story of the past and shows the evolution of
form over millions of years.

The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous
(fossil-containing) rock formations and sedimentary layers (strata) is known as the fossil record.
The fossil record was one of the early sources of data underlying the study of evolution and
continues to be relevant to the history of life on Earth. The development of radiometric dating
techniques in the early 20th century allowed geologists to determine the numerical or “absolute”
age of various strata and their included fossils
 biomarker: A substance used as an indicator of a biological state, most
commonly disease.
 trace fossil: A type of fossil reflecting the reworking of sediments and hard
substrates by organisms including structures like burrows, trails, and
impressions.
 fossil record: All discovered and undiscovered fossils and their placement in
rock formations and sedimentary layers.
 strata: Layers of sedimentary rock.
 fossiliferous: Containing fossils.
 2. Comparative Anatomy:

Comparative anatomy is the study of the similarities and differences in the structures of
different species. Similar body parts may be homologous structures or analogous structures. Both
provide evidence for evolution
.
Homologous structures are structures that are similar in related organisms because they were
inherited from a common ancestor. These structures may or may not have the same function in
the descendants. Figure 9.3.39.3.3 shows the upper appendages of several different mammals.
They all have the same basic pattern of bones, although they now have different functions. All of
these mammals inherited this basic bone pattern from a common ancestor.

Analogous structures are structures that are similar in unrelated organisms. The structures are
similar because they evolved to do the same job, not because they were inherited from a common
ancestor. For example, the wings of bats and birds, shown in the figure that follows, look similar
on the outside and have the same function. However, wings evolved independently in the two
groups of animals. This is apparent when you compare the pattern of bones inside the wings

VESTIGIAL STRUCTURES
Structures like the human tail bone are called vestigial structures. Evolution has reduced their
size because the structures are no longer used. The human appendix is another example of
a vestigial structure. It is a tiny remnant of a once-larger organ. In a distant ancestor, it was
needed to digest food, but it serves no purpose in the human body today. 

3. COMPARATIVE EMBRYOLOGY:

Comparative embryology is the study of the similarities and differences in the embryos of
different species. Similarities in embryos are likely to be evidence of common ancestry. All
vertebrate embryos, for example, have gill slits and tails.

All of the embryos in Figure 9.3.49.3.4, except for fish, lose their gill slits by adulthood, and
some of them also lose their tail. In humans, the tail is reduced to the tail bone. Thus, similarities
organisms share as embryos may no longer be present by adulthood. This is why it is valuable to
compare organisms in the embryonic stage

4. MOLECULAR BIOLOGY OR MOLECULAR EVIDENCE

Similarities between biological molecules can reflect shared evolutionary ancestry. At the
most basic level, all living organisms share:
 The same genetic material (DNA)
 The same, or highly similar, genetic codes
 The same basic process of gene expression (transcription and translation)

These shared features suggest that all living things are descended from a common
ancestor, and that this ancestor had DNA as its genetic material, used the genetic code,
and expressed its genes by transcription and translation. Present-day organisms all share
these features because they were "inherited" from the ancestor (and because any big
changes in this basic machinery would have broken the basic functionality of cells).

Although they're great for establishing the common origins of life, features like having
DNA or carrying out transcription and translation are not so useful for figuring
out how related particular organisms are. If we want to determine which organisms in a
group are most closely related, we need to use different types of molecular features, such
as the nucleotide sequences of genes.

Homologous genes

Biologists often compare the sequences of related genes found in different species (often
called homologous or orthologous genes) to figure out how those species are
evolutionarily related to one another.
The basic idea behind this approach is that two species have the "same" gene because they
inherited it from a common ancestor. For instance, humans, cows, chickens, and
chimpanzees all have a gene that encodes the hormone insulin, because this gene was
already present in their last common ancestor.
In general, the more DNA differences in homologous genes between two species, the more
distantly the species are related. For instance, human and chimpanzee insulin genes are
much more similar (about 98% identical) than human and chicken insulin genes (about
64% identical), reflecting that humans and chimpanzees are more closely related than
humans and chickens.