• Basic idea that all species rose from a common ancestor through gradual change from specie to specie
• Accumulation of heritable changes in populations over time

• A group of individuals of a single species living in the same habitat at the same time
• Possibility of interbreeding

• Peppered moth - light gray to dark after industrial revolution
• Antibacterial resistance - resistance to drugs that previously worked

• Aristotle - Scale of nature-world organized by increasing complexity
• Lamark - Fossils were remains of organisms, inheritance through aquired characteristics---proved false

• Mechanism for evolution
• The best fit traits were kept for future generations while the "weaker" genes were lost

• Charles Lyell - Geological processes, the earth is old enough for evolution to have occured
• Artificial selection - man made changes
• Thomas Mathius - populations grow geometrically

• Proposed by Alfred Wallace
• Derived from the theory of natural selection

• Fossil Record
• Intermediate forms
• Age of fossils
• Comparative anatomy
• Zoogeography
• Molecular comparisons

Support of Evolution

Fossil Record

• Preserved organisms
• Mainly teeth and bones
• Soft bodied organisms are not well represnted

Support of evolution

Intermediate forms

• Fossils with a mix of primitive and advanced characters
• Whales and horses exhibit these forms

Support of evolution

Age of fossils

• Sedimentary rock - Age of fossils, oldest are on the bottom
• Radioisotopes - Age of rocks, carbon dating, halflife of elements

Support of evolution

Comparative anatomy

• Similar arrangement of bones and muscles
• Homology-share same gene
• Homoplasy-convergent evolution
• Vestigial organs-no longer needed
• Principle of irreversibility-lost genes
• Loss of embryological characters-notochord, segemented muscles, aoritic arches, gill pouches, tubular heart

Support of evolution

Molecular comparisons

• Universal genetic code
• Same codons for all animals

• Ecological niches, barriers to distribution, established populations prevent new colonization
• Dispersal-active or passive
• Vicariance biogeography-caused by physical barriers

• Proposed by Alfred Wegener
• Pangea - super continent
• 200 mya - together
• 180 mya - 1st break
• 65 mya - break of Gondwana (Af+ SA)