Download Unit 4 Study Guide: Evolution and the History of Life on Earth - Prof. Joy B. Trauth and more Study notes Biology in PDF only on Docsity! EVOLUTION AND THE HISTORY OF LIFE ON EARTH Unit 4 Study Guide 1. What do we call the theory first proposed by Alfred Wegener that the continents have moved and are continuing to move around on 7 large crustal plates? 2. What provides the power that moves the crustal plates? 3. What are the 2 conditions generally necessary for fossilization? 4. What is the name of the famous fossil storehouse in Los Angeles? 5. What radioactive element can be used to date organic material less than 75,000 years old? 6. Name 2 other radioactive elements used to date rock. 7. What are organisms intermediate in characteristics between two species and showing a link between them called? 8. Explain how Achaeopteryx is a transitional form between dinosaurs and birds? 9. What is the name of the ancient “fishapod” that had characteristics of both fish and land vertebrates? 10. Provide 5 evidences of evolution. 11. Body parts of different organisms that are similar in structure and develop in the embryo in the same way are called what kind of structures? 12. Give examples of homologous structures. 13. Structures that seem to have no use in some species when similar structures are quite useful in related species are called what kind of structures? 14. Give examples of vestigial structures. 15. What two embryological features do all Chordate embryos have? 16. Provide evidence for biochemical similarity among all living things. 17. What are the 5 requirements for evolution and/or speciation? 18. Explain the statement, “Through natural selection of individuals, species become adapted”. 1 19. Provide examples of evolution? Peppered moth, horses, camels, bacteria, birds, whales, etc. 20. What is adaptive radiation? 21. What is the driving force of evolution? 22. Give examples of adaptive radiation and resulting speciation. 23. How long ago did the earth form? 24. Approximately how long ago did the first living cells appear on earth? 25. Describe the first living cells? 26. What is the currently accepted hypothesis on the origin of eukaryotic cells? 27. How did the development of blue-green bacteria and algae change the earth’s atmosphere? 28. What is the Cambrian Explosion and when did it occur? 29. What were the first true vertebrate animals? 30. What were the first animals to inhabit the land? 31. Amphibians developed from what type of fish? 32. What is the evolutionary importance of the reptile egg? 33. What other animals appear in the fossil record at the same time as the dinosaurs? 34. What event enabled mammals to spread out into different ecological niches and increase in number of species? 35. Birds are most closely related to what extinct group of animals? 36. How did life in the trees affect primate evolution? 37. How does the vision of primates differ from that of most other mammals? 38. How can paleontologists determine if a fossilized organism walked upright or not? 39. The dinosaurs were all extinct by how long ago? 40. Describe the evolution of the horse over the last 60 million years. 41. For which character was nature selecting in the evolution of the horse? 2
