Chapter 26:

Early Earth and the Origin of Life

Some
major
episodes
in the
history of
life.

Clock
analogy for
some key
events in
evolutionar
y history

1. The earth was formed ~4.5 billion years ago

2. It took ~500 million years for the crust to solidify.

3. The oldest fossils of microorganisms

3.5 billion years old,
embedded in rocks in western Australia

3a. Prokaryotes dominated from 3.5 to 2 billion

years ago.
- During this time, the first divergence occurred:
Bacteria and Archae

Early and modern prokaryotes

Fossilized evidence of bacteria

Stromatolites are fossilized bacterial mats. Many fossils
of prokaryotes are found in layers that make up the
prokaryotic mats.

Bacterial mats and

stromatolites

4. Oxygen began accumulating in the atmosphere about 2.7

billion years ago.
a. Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic prokaryotes that are
still present today produced oxygen.

Banded iron formations are evidence of the age of

oxygenic photosynthesis approximately 2 BYA in
photo

5. The oldest eukaryotic fossils are ~2 billion years old.

a. Symbiotic community of prokaryotes living within
larger prokaryotes.
Mitochondria and chloroplasts
6. The oldest fossils of multicellular organisms are ~1.2
billion years old.

Endosymbiosis theory

(Lynn Margulis, 1970s)

Eukaryotic Origins
A. Invagination of plasma membrane
B. Endosymbiosis
Symbiosis : An ecological relationship between
organisms of 2 different species that live
together in direct contact.
How did this get started?
prey or parasite

Evidence
modern-day endosymbiotic relationships
common among protists

similarity between eubacteria & the

chloroplasts & mitochondria of eukaryotes
size
inner membrane systems, enzymes, electron transport
systems
reproduction resembles binary fission
circular DNA

Note the presence

of two types of cells
(photosynthetic and
hold fast)
evidence of
specialization of
cells functions, that
are important for
development of
multicellular
organisms

7. The oldest animal fossils are ~700 million years old.

a. Animal diversity exploded ~540 million years ago.

Fossilized animal embryos from Chinese

sediments 570 million years ago.

8. Plants, fungi, and animals began colonizing land ~500

million years ago.
a. First plants transformed the landscape
b. Then animals were able to take advantage of new niches
Mammals evolved 50 to 60 million years ago.

The
Cambrian
radiation
of
animals

B. The origin of life

1. First cells may have originated by chemical evolution
involving 4 steps:
a. Abiotic (Non-biological) synthesis of small organic
molecules (monomers) C + H = organic molecule
b. Monomers joined together to form polymers (proteins,
nucleic acids)
c. Origin of self-replicating molecules (inheritance of traits)
proteins and polynucleic acids
d. Packaging of these organic molecules into protobionts.
Aggregates of abiotically produced molecules that maintain
an internal chemical environment and exhibit some of the
properties associated with life (i.e. metabolism, excitability).

2. Evidence that supports the four-stage hypothesis for the

origin of life
a. Oparin and Haldane in the 1920s Abiotic synthesis of
organic molecules is testable in the laboratory
Hypothesis: Conditions on primitive earth favored chemical
reactions that synthesized organic compounds from inorganic
precursors. These conditions were different from what is now
present and include:
- Reducing environment (no oxygen, but instead H2O, CH4,
NH4, and H2) = lots of free electrons that could be used to
reduce carbon and produce organic molecules.
- Energy from lots of lightning, UV radiation (no O 2 to block
UV rays from the sun) and volcanic activity (heat).

b. Miller and Urey in 1953

i. Tested the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis by creating
conditions in which there was an
- Atmosphere above warmed sea water that contained H2O,
H2, CH4, and NH3 and
- Electrodes that simulated lightning.
- From this setup, they obtained organic compounds such as
amino acids that were collected in cooled water.

The MillerUrey
experiment

The experiment - organic molecules could be created out of

inorganic molecules.
So.why dont we see this happening in todays world?
Any organic molecules that are now formed would be
used up by living organisms.
If microorganisms were created from these organic
molecules in the early earths water bodies, this would have
been an example of spontaneous creation!
For much of history, man believed that living organisms could
be created spontaneously from non-living material (e.g. flies
from dead meat, geese from barnacles, etc.)
This idea was refuted by Louis Pasteur in the 1860s.

3. RNA was probably the first hereditary material

a. Today, genetic information is usually stored as DNA, but
some organisms such as viruses use RNA to store info.

 Short polymers of ribonucleotides can be

synthesized abiotically in the laboratory.
If these polymers are added to a solution of
ribonucleotide monomers, sequences up to 10 based
long are copied from the template according to the
base-pairing rules.
If zinc is added, the copied sequences may reach 40
nucleotides with less than 1% error.

Copyright2002PearsonEducation,Inc.,publishingasBenjaminCummings

Fig.26.11

 In the 1980s Thomas Cech discovered that

RNA molecules are important catalysts in
modern cells.
RNA catalysts, called ribozymes, remove
introns from RNA.
Ribozymes also help catalyze the synthesis of
new RNA polymers.
In the pre-biotic world, RNA molecules may
have been fully capable of ribozyme-catalyzed
replication.

Copyright2002PearsonEducation,Inc.,publishingasBenjaminCummings

 Laboratory experiments have demonstrated

that RNA sequences can evolve in abiotic
conditions.
RNA molecules have both a genotype
(nucleotide sequence) and a phenotype (three
dimensional shape) that interacts with
surrounding molecules.
Under particular conditions, some RNA
sequences are more stable and replicate faster
and with fewer errors than other sequences.
Occasional copying errors create mutations and
selection screens these mutations for the most
stable or best at self-replication.

 RNA-directed protein synthesis may have

begun as weak binding of specific amino acids
to bases along RNA molecules, which
functioned as simple templates holding a few
amino acids together long enough for them to
be linked.
This is one function of rRNA today in ribosomes.

If RNA synthesized a short polypeptide that

behaved as an enzyme helping RNA
replication, then early chemical dynamics
would include molecular cooperation as well
as competition.
Copyright2002PearsonEducation,Inc.,publishingasBenjaminCummings

4. The precursors of early life are known as Protobionts.

a. Protobionts form spontaneously in lab experiments from
mixtures of organic molecules.
b. They contain RNA that codes for metabolic proteins.
These protobionts absorb food and the proteins catalyze it
to make energy which can be used for growth and division
to daughter cells.
c. Natural selection would favor protobionts that grow and
replicate. When the organic molecules in the earths water
bodies were gone, the protobionts would evolve to either
obtain energy by photosynthesis or predation.
It would only take the creation and evolution of one (1)
protobiont to give rise to the all the different organisms we
see today.

6. Natural section could refine protobionts

containing hereditary information
Once primitive RNA genes
and their polypeptide products
were packaged within a
membrane, the protobionts
could have evolved as units.
Molecular cooperation could
be refined because favorable
components
were concentrated
together, rather than
spread throughout the
surroundings.
Copyright2002PearsonEducation,Inc.,publishingasBenjaminCummings

Fig.26.13

This 4.5 billion-year-old rock, labeled meteorite ALH84001, is believed to have once been
a part of Mars and to contain fossil evidence that primitive life may have existed on Mars
more than 3.6 billion years ago. The rock is a portion of a meteorite that was dislodged
from Mars by a huge impact about 16 million years ago and that fell to Earth in Antarctica
13,000 years ago. The meteorite was found in Allan Hills ice field, Antarctica, by an annual
expedition of the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Meteorite Program in 1984. It is
preserved at the Johnson Space Center's Meteorite Processing Laboratory in Houston.

c. Louis Pasteur in the 1860s

i. Tested whether microorganisms emerge by spontaneous
generation or by reproduction of existing microorganisms.
- Microorganisms grew in open containers of sterilized broth.

C. Major lineages of life

1. At first, two kingdoms were recognized Plants and
Animals.
2. In 1969, Robert Whittaker developed a five-kingdom
system Plants, Fungi, Animals, Protists, and Prokaryotes
(Monera).

Whittaker
s fivekingdom
system

Our changing view of biological diversity