Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
Evolution creates (and destroys) new species, but What is a species? Its not as straightforward a quetion as most believe.
These are members of different species - eastern (left) and western (right) meadowlark.
What is a Species?
What is a Species?
Determining What Is and What Isnt a Distinct Species Can Have Economic Consequences
What is a Species?
The definition well use is this: A species is a group of individuals capable of interbreeding to produce fertile offspring.
This is the biological species concept. Like all attempts to define a species, it has many problems.
We dont know. About 2 million species have been described. Estimates of existing species number range from 4 million to 100 million (with 10-15 million being a more commonly considered upper estimate).
The key to speciation is reproductive isolation of populations. There are extrinsic and intrinsic reproductive isolating mechanisms.
Process of speciation:
Parent species 2 separate species
I. Barrier
II. Diverge
Allopatric speciation occurs when geographic isolation creates a reproductive barrier (an extrinsic mechanism). Sympatric speciation occurs when a reproductive barrier is created by something other than geographic isolation (intrinsic mechanisms).
Allopatric Speciation
Harris antelope squirrel
Two species of ground squirrel are postulated to have descended from a common ancestral population that was separated by formation of the Grand Canyon.
In allopatric speciation, intrinsic mechanisms come into play once populations are physically separated.
Courtship rituals, like these, are critical for mating within a species, but ineffective for attracting members of other species.
Courtship rituals, like these, are critical for mating within a species, but ineffective for attracting members of other species.
A slow rate of speciation evidenced by a living horseshoe crab (13 extant species) and a 300 million year-old fossil species A rapid rate of speciation evidenced by Galapagos finches which have diversified into 13 species within the last 100,000 years.
Speciation Rates
Specialists, like the Galapagos finch, tend to be unstable as species. Speciation also becomes rapid when, as occurred with Galapagos finches, new niches become available.
No, only better organisms as evolution is constrained by history and buffeted by random events. Essentially, every organism on earth is in significant part a sum of accidents.
90% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct
Gary Larson
Why bother? An intrinsic reason is that modern classification systems tell whos related to whom and how we all came to be.
Why bother?
A practical reason is that if we want to preserve an environment compatible with human life, wed better know whats out there.
Cladistics proceeds by comparing shared ancestral and shared derived characters between sets of organisms.
Cladistics
The greater the number of derived characters shared by a pair of organisms, the closer their degree of relationship. The closer the degree of relationship, the closer the most recent common ancestor.
Homologous structures, like the bat wing and gorilla arm, are similar because they are derived by modification of a shared ancestral structure. Homology is the key to establishing phylogenies.
Allauidia of Madagascar
Cladistic analysis indicates that the bird/crocodile pair is more closely related.
DNA Hybridization:
uses DNA similarity between species
Chimpanzees
Bonobos Orangutans Humans
15-30 MYA 0 14 MYA
Chimpanzees
Bonobos
Gorillas
Orangutans
0
The pre-molecular view was that the great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans) formed a clade separate from humans, and that humans diverged from the apes at least 15-30 MYA.
Mitochondrial DNA, most nuclear DNA-encoded genes, and DNA/DNA hybridization all show that bonobos and chimpanzees are related more closely to humans than either are to gorillas.