Macroevolution and the

Formation of New Species

Macroevolution

 Focuses on the formation of new species

(speciation) and on the evolutionary
relationship between groups of species.
Species

 Is a population capable of interbreeding – of producing

viable, fertile offspring. These species are reproductively
isolated.
 Example:
 Frogs in the farmer’s pond are the same species as those in
the neighbouring pond, even though the two populations
may never interbreed.
Is speciation is a process?

 It can occur at various rates. Speciation through

the process of adaptive change to the
environment as proposed in Darwin’s Origins of
Species (1895) is generally considered to occur
at a slow rate.
 In this speciation happens as organisms become
more adapted to their environment.
The Human Evolutionary Path

 Australopithecus (2 and 3 million years ago)

 Homo Erectus (750, 000 years ago)
 Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis (100,000 and
400,000 years ago)
 Homo Sapiens (40,000 years ago to the present)
Australopithecus (2 and 3 million years ago)
Homo Erectus (750, 000 years ago)
Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis (100,000 and 400,000
years ago)
Homo Sapiens (40,000 years ago to the present)
Speciation can also take place quite rapidly.

 For instance, a genetic mutation involving a key

regulatory gene can lead to the formation of a new
body plan. Such genetic accidents may involve
material that is broken off, transposed, or
transferred from one chromosome to another.
Homeobox

 Is a genes responsible for the large scale effects on

the growth and development of organism.
 If a new body plan is adaptive, an organism will
maintain its new form during long periods of time
rather than promote change because of natural
selection
Natural Selection

 is a process through which certain environmentally

adapted biological features are perpetuated at the
expense of less adaptive features.
 Long evolutionary paths of humans – similar to
mammals and primates – have set the stage for the
stage for the cultural beings tha
 t we are today.
 The first mammal appeared over 200 million years
ago as small nocturnal creatures.
Continental drift

 Is important for understanding the distribution of

fossil primate groups as well as climatic changes in
the environment that affected the evolution of
primates and other living things.
Earliest primates

 Like mammals came into being approximately 65

million years ago when a new, mild climate
favored the spread of dense tropical and
subtropical forests in most land areas around the
world.
Diurnal anthropoid primates

 It appeared approximately 40 million years ago

Miocene

 Start of the geological epoch, 23 million years

after the appearance of Diurnal Anthropoid
primates.
 The first fossil apes or hominoids began to appear
in Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Hominoids

 Are broad-shouldered tailless primates that include

all living and extinct apes and humans.
 Hominoid comes from the Latin root words
homo and homi (human being) and the suffix
oxides (resembling)