Evidences of Evolution

•Fossil Record
•Biogeography
•Comparative Anatomy
•Comparative Embryology
•Molecular Biology
Fossil Record

The bones of this Tyrannosaurus rex were preserved

through the process of permineralization, which suggests
that this organism was covered by sediment soon after
death.
Fossils
o remains or traces of ancient organisms that lived in the past (10,000
to 3.48 billion years old)
o traces such as footprints, burrows, tools (humans) and other
evidences of the existence of ancient organisms
o remains which include body parts or entire bodies that have been
preserved
o strongest proof that species do change
o Prokaryotes are oldest known fossils.
o Paleontologists can determine the age of fossils using radiocarbon
dating.
•
Observations of Fossil Records
oThe remains of ancient life found in the oldest
rocks are fewer and more primitive than those
found in younger rocks.
oThe remains of many ancient plants and animals
show structural similarities to certain organisms
that live today, although none is exactly the
same as the living species
oFossils found in younger rocks are not found in
much older rocks.
Biogeography
o geographical distribution of species
o distribution of species in relation both too geography and to other
species
 Disciplines
o Historical biogeography
 concerned with the origins and evolutionary histories of
species on a long - time scale
 make use of a tool called an area cladogram
 diagram made by taking a taxonomic tree which shows
various species and their relatedness and replacing the
species names with the geographic location in which those
species are found
oEcological biogeography
deals with the current interaction of species
with their environments and each other on a
much shorter time scale
ecological biographers have developed the
species richness equilibrium model
•
Comparative Anatomy

Organisms which have very similar structures

have very close evolutionary ties.
Structures that are similar because of common
ancestry are known as homologous structures.
Homology is similarity in characteristics
resulting from common ancestry.
 Figure 5. The principle of homology.
The biological relationships ( shown by colours ) of the
bones in the forelimbs of vertebrates were used by
Charles Darwin as an argument in favor of evolution.
Organisms which have very similar structures
have very close evolutionary ties.
Structures that are similar because of common
ancestry are known as homologous structures.
Homology is similarity in characteristics
resulting from common ancestry.
Comparative Embryology

Figure 6. Similarities of the fish, reptile, bird, and human embryos.

Organisms which undergo similar
developmental changes have close
evolutionary ties.
Probably an ancestral form gradually
evolved over millions of years into different
vertebrate forms.
Molecular Biology
•Organisms which have closer
evolutionary ties (e.g., man and
chimpanzee ) have more DNA and
proteins in common than those that
are more distantly related ( e.g., man
and shrimp)