EVOLUTION OF LIFE

OBJECTIVES:
• Explain the concept of evolution;
• Summarize the major events of the geologic time scale;
• Analyze modern theories on the origin of life; and
• Trace the development of evolutionary thought.
EVOLUTION
It concerns with the origin and the natural processes
of life.
It is one of the most well-known subjects in the field
of Biology.
GEOLOGIC TIME SCALE
GEOLOGIC TIME SCALE
To chart the history of the Earth, geologists have developed a
geologic time scale that consists of four eras:
Precambrian
Paleozoic
Mesozoic
Cenozoic
 PRECAMBRIAN ERA
This era in Earth’s history began 4.6 billion years ago and lasted
until around 542 million years ago.
The Precambrian era involves three eons:
 Hadean/ Haydean
Characterized by the formation of the planet, the first
 Archean tectonic movements and the absence of life on Earth.
The single-celled organisms and certain marine mammals
 Proterozoic emerged marking the beginning of life on earth.
PRECAMBRIAN ERA
 PALEOZOIC ERA
This era lasted around 542 million years to 250 million years ago.
Cambrian explosion- an event characterized by the migration of
marine animals onto land.
 The emergence of vertebrates species.
 The growth of vascular plants.
 The diversification of fishes and amphibians.
The Ordovician Period ushered in significant changes in plate tectonics, climate,
and biological systems. Rapid seafloor spreading at oceanic ridges fostered some
of the highest global sea levels in the Phanerozoic Eon.
Large expanses of several continents became flooded with shallow seas, and
mound-type coral reefs were very common. Fishes were widespread. Vascular
plants began to colonize coastal lowlands during the Silurian Period, whereas
continental interiors remained essentially barren of life.
The Devonian, part of the Paleozoic era, is otherwise known as the Age of
Fishes, as it spawned a remarkable variety of fish. The most formidable of them
were the armored placoderms, a group that first appeared during the Silurian
with powerful jaws lined with bladelike plates that acted as teeth.
“Age of Crinoids”

The Mississippian Period represents the last time limestone

was deposited by widespread seas on the North American
continent. Limestone is composed of calcium carbonate from
marine organisms such as crinoids, which dominated the seas
during the Mississippian Period.
The vast amount of plant material provided by extensive
forests resulted in the later formation of coal, which
characterizes the Pennsylvanian Period. Also characteristic
of Pennsylvanian time was the diversification of
amphibians and insects. For example, insects with non-
folding wings appeared.
During the Permian period, the last period of the era, Pangaea began to drift
apart, causing a major extinction that wiped out the majority of life on Earth.
All the world's landmasses were joined into a single continent that spread from
pole to pole.
PANGAEA

The continent we now know as North America was contiguous with Africa, South America,
and Europe. They all existed as a single continent called Pangea.
 MESOZOIC ERA
Lasting from approximately 250 million years to 65 million years
ago.
This era has been called “the age of Dinosaurs”.
The Mesozoic era involves three period:
 Triassic
 Jurassic
 Cretaceous
Triassic Period
This era is popularly known as the “Age of
Reptiles” and for good reason: reptiles,
and particularly dinosaurs, were the
dominant land-dwelling vertebrate
animals at the time.
Jurassic Period
The Jurassic Period was a golden time for
dinosaurs, which flourished for 180 million
years. Huge sauropod herbivores (such as 87-
foot [27-meter] long Diplodocus) and
carnivores (such as 35-foot [11-meter] long
Allosaurus) emerged. To get a sense of how
large these animals were, imagine sprinting
as fast as you can.
Cretaceous Period
During the Cretaceous, accelerated plate
collision caused mountains to build along the
western margin of North America. As these
mountains were rising, the Gulf of Mexico
basin subsided, and seawater began to
spread northward into the expanding western
interior. Marine water also began to flood
from the Arctic region.
MASS EXTINCTION

The Mesozoic came to an abrupt end 66 million years ago in a

dramatic extinction event. An estimated 70 per cent of plant and
animal species perished.
 CENOZOIC ERA
This ongoing era began around 65
million years ago.
This was characterized by the height of
the Ice Age, which saw the existence of
the wolly mammoth and the saber-
toothed tiger.
Paleogene
During the Paleogene the continents drifted
farther apart, heading toward their modern
positions. Oceans widened the gaps, Europe
severed its last ties with North America, and
Australia and Antarctica finally parted ways.
Neogene
The Neogene Period started with
the replacement of vast areas of forest by
grasslands and savannahs. New food sources and
niches on the grasslands and savannahs fostered
further evolution of mammals and birds. Whales
diversified in the seas, and sharks reached their
largest size during the Miocene.
Quaternary Period
The Quaternary Period is the third and last of the
three periods of the Cenozoic Era. You and I are
living in this period, which began only 2.58 million
years ago. This is less than 0.1% of all of geologic
time! A thin layer of sediments deposited during the
Quaternary covers much of the Earth's land surface.
THEORIES ABOUT THE
EVOLUTION OF LIFE
 THEORIES ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE
Anaximander
(610-546 B.C.) He suggested that life
evolved from slimes in
the ocean and migrated
eventually to drier,
terrestrial areas.
 THEORIES ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE
Xenophanes
(570-480 B.C.)
He observed fossils and
came up with various
theories about the
evolution of life on earth.
 THEORIES ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE
Aristotle
(384-322 B.C.) He believed that animals
emerged from different
elements and an
animating force called
vital heat, or soul.
 THEORIES ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE
Carolus Linnaeus
He developed a system of
(1707-1778) classification for all
identified organisms during
his time, and was able to
show an evolutionary
pattern among species
through this system.
 THEORIES ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE
George-Louis Leclerc, Comte
de Buffon
(1707-1788)
He hypothesized that species
come from the same ancestors
instead of emerging separately
from one another.
 THEORIES ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE
Charles Bonnet
He believed that
(1720-1793) organisms were climbing
a “ladder of life” through
which animals became
more intelligent; primates
became human; and
humans became angels.
 THEORIES ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE
Erasmus Darwin
(1731-1802)
He suggested that all life
came from a common
ancestor.
 THEORIES ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
(1744-1829)
He formulated the theory
of use and disuse and the
inheritance of acquired
traits.
 THEORIES ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF LIFE
Charles Darwin
(1804-1882) He proposed the theory
of natural selection and
provided evidence for the
theory of common
ancestry.
CHARLES DARWIN AND THE EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT

THE THEORY OF NATURAL SELECTION

Erasmus Darwin
Suggested the idea that animals evolved from a common
ancestor.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
Formulated two theories about the evolution of species:
1. The theories of use and disuse.
2. The inheritance of acquired characteristics.
 THE THEORY OF USE AND DISUSE
The limbs, organs, and behavior
or organisms are enhanced when
utilized more frequently for their
survival. Oppositely, when these
physical and behavioral
characteristics fall into disuse,
they either reduce in size,
decrease function or stop
evolving. LAMARCKISM
THE THEORY OF INHERITANCE OF ACQUIRED TRAITS
The adaptation developed by organisms
during their lifetime, such as the changes in
their physical and behavioral traits, become
genetically encoded and are passed on to
their offspring.
CHARLES DARWIN AND NATURAL SELECTION
HMS BEAGLE
DARWIN REALIZED THAT……
Living organisms adapt to their environment. This means
that the way they look, the way they behave, how they are
built, or their way of life makes them suited to survive and
reproduce in their habitats.
The changes in the traits of a species can result in:
• The evolution of species
• The emergence of a new species
• The possibility of tracing the ancestry of organisms
 He synthesized unrelated facts
into a conceptual framework that
accounted for the diversity of life.
In this book, he described the
phenomenon of natural selection
as “Descent with modification”.

Darwin defined evolution as "descent

with modification," the idea that species
change over time, give rise to new
species, and share a common ancestor.
CHARLES LYELL
He developed the theory of
uniformitarianism, which was a
significant influence on the
formation of Charles Darwin's
theory of evolution. The theory of
uniformitarianism states that the
processes by which current
geological features were created
were slow, steady, and constant.
THOMAS MALTHUS
He concluded that as more
offspring are born, a more
competitive nature would arise.
As more offspring come into the
population, fewer resources will
be available for the population.
This has the potential for
competition between organisms
for survival due to lack of
resources.
ALFRED WALLACE

Wallace supplied Darwin with birds

for his studies and decided to seek
Darwin's help in publishing his own
ideas on evolution. He sent Darwin
his theory in 1858, which, to
Darwin's shock, nearly replicated
Darwin's own.
JAMES HUTTON
James Hutton (1726 - 1797) is best
known for his important
contributions to the science of
geology (uniformitarianism and the
great age of the earth). However,
Hutton was also the first person to
propose a mechanism of natural
selection to account for evolutionary
change over time.
ORIGIN OF LIFE ON
EARTH
Without The Origin

ABIOGENESIS
Life

The idea that life arose from

nonlife more than 3.5 billion
years ago on Earth. Abiogenesis
proposes that the first life-forms
generated were very simple and
through a gradual process
became increasingly complex.
 RNA
Some scientists have
theorized that Ribonucleic
Acid (RNA) was the first
molecule to evolve into an
active component of life, as
it has the ability to act as
both genes and enzymes.
HAROLD UREY & STANLEY MILLER (1953)

The primary significance of the Miller-Urey experiment was

that the experiment significantly proved that origin of life
on the planet Earth had occurred because of the chemical
conditions or through Abiogenesis. During the
investigation, the reactants that were used were water,
methane, ammonia, and hydrogen.
OTHER VIEWS ON THE ORIGIN OF LIFE:

1. Ocean Surface (Tidal Pools)

This theory suggests that life arose
either form a tidepool, pond or moist caly
on primeval Earth.
Gases from volcanoes were believer
to have been energized by ultraviolet light
from the sun of from electrical discharges
to form prebiotic molecules in their froth.
OTHER VIEWS ON THE ORIGIN OF LIFE:
2. Panspermia
This theory, also known as Cosmic
Ancestry, suggests that living
organisms were seeded on Earth by
passengers aboard comets and
meteors.
Such incoming organisms would
have to survive the heat of re-entry
into Earth’s atmosphere.
OTHER VIEWS ON THE ORIGIN OF LIFE:
3. Undersea Thermal
Vents
This is recently proposed theory,
which suggests that life have arisen at
ancient volcanic vents on the seafloor.
This environment provides necessary
gases, energy, and possible sources of
catalysts such as metal sulphides.
OTHER VIEWS ON THE ORIGIN OF LIFE:

4. Endosymbiosis
The American biologist Lyn
Margulis proposed that cell organelles
may have evolved when a small
prokaryote was engulfed by a larger
prokaryote and began to live
symbiotically inside the larger cell.
EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION
1. FOSSIL RECORDS
 FOSSIL RECORD
Fossils are remains of ancient
organisms whose corpses
escaped decay or decomposition
and, after many years, became
part of Earth’s crust.
A fossil may be the preserved
bones or skin of the organisms
themselves.
FOSSIL RECORD
Fossils may also be casts, which
are impressions of organisms on
the sediment, or trace fossils,
which are marks made by the
organism during its lifetime.
 FOSSIL RECORD
Fossilization of dead
organisms occurs through
the rapid burial of their
remains, usually in water-
borne sediment.
 FOSSIL RECORD
Fossil evidences show the
chronological emergence of
vertebrates as being sequential
to fishes, followed by
amphibians, reptiles, birds and
mammals.
 FOSSIL RECORD
Radiometric dating is a type of
fossil dating which uses the
radioactive material in sediment
to determine the fossil’s age.
The technique assumes that in
undisturbed layers of rock, the
deepest rock layers contain the
oldest fossils.
 ISOTOPES
Atoms of the same element (same
number of proton) but with
different number of neutrons.

Will not emit radioactive

particle or will not decay
spontaneously because it is
stable.
 ISOTOPES
Atoms of the same element (same
number of proton) but with
different number of neutrons.

Not stable
Will release radioactive particle or radiation
to become stable or what we called the
RADIOACTIVE DECAY.
The half-life of a substance is the
time it takes for half of the
substance to decay. The word
"half-life" was first used when
talking about radioactive
elements where the number of
atoms get smaller over time by
changing into different atoms.

A useful concept is half-life (symbol is t1/2), which

is the time required for half of the starting material
to change or decay. Half-lives can be calculated from
measurements on the change in mass of a nuclide
and the time it takes to occur.
75% Nitrogen-14
25% Carbon-14

1 half-life=50% Carbon-14 and 50% Nitogen-14

2 half-life=25% Carbon-14 and 75% Nitogen-14

Carbon-14
Half-life= 5730 years
The fossil has undergone two half lives.

2 x 5730= 11,460 years

HUMAN SKELETON
EARTH’S AGE
As the uranium in rocks decays, it
emits subatomic particles and
turns into lead at a constant
rate. Measuring the uranium-to-
lead ratios in the oldest rocks on
Earth gave scientists an
estimated age of the planet of
4.6 billion years.
2. MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

Each of our proteins has a specific

number of amino acids arranged in a
specific order. Any difference that
occurs in the amino acid sequence
reflects changes in the DNA
composition of an organism.
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
1 2
The Hemoglobin beta chain, a
polypeptide that makes up the
hemoglobin in blood cells, has
been used as a standard
molecule for comparing the
precise sequence of amino acids
in different species.

1 2
3. COMPARATIVE EMBRYOLOGY

Ernest Von Bayer (1828)

COMPARATIVE EMBRYOLOGY
4. COMPARATIVE ANATOMY

The evolutionary relationships among

groups of organisms can be
determined through structural
resemblances called homologous
structures.
COMPARATIVE ANATOMY

These limbs are analogous structures

5. BIOGEOGRAPHICAL EVIDENCES
 BIOGEOGRAPHICAL EVIDENCES
Biogeography is the study of
the geographical distribution of
species at present and in the
past.
It stresses the role of species
dispersal from a point of origin
across pre-existing barriers that
separate them from their
population.
SUMMARY
SUMMARY
SUMMARY
SUMMARY
SUMMARY
SUMMARY
SUMMARY
REFERENCES: