BIOL 111 - Midterm #2 Flashcards
(154 cards)
Where are fossils preserved?
Sedimentary rocks
What differences would be observed in older rock layers compared to newer?
Older layers contain fossils that diverge from modern forms. More recent layers contain fossils more closely resembling living species.
What is used to define different periods in Earths history?
Changes in the fossil record.
How are absolute ages of time periods determined?
Radiometric dating
What are some of the oldest fossils?
Stromatolites from 3.5 billion years ago, during the Archean eon.
(Colonies of microbes that grow in shallow water)
Difference in age between prokaryotic and eukaryotic domains?
Two prokaryotic domains were both present 3.5 billion years ago.
Eukaryotes appeared over 1.5 billion years later.
Where did oxygenic photosynthesis evolve?
Cyanobacteria - 3 billion years ago.
When did atmospheric O2 start to rise?
2.5 billion years ago.
Only approached modern levels after the evolution of land plants 500 million years ago.
What is correlated with the evolution of larger organisms overtime?
Increasing atmospheric O2 levels.
What colonized land over 2 billion years ago?
Cyanobacteria and other prokaryotes.
1.5 billion years before first multi cellular plants.
How old are the oldest eukaryotic fossils?
2 - 1.5 billion years ago.
What allows eukaryotic cells to be larger and more complex that prokaryotic cells?
Complex internal membrane and cytoplasm.
When did the first multicellular red and green algae appear?
1 billion years ago.
What did land plants evolve from?
Green algae.
When did the first multicellular animals evolve?
1 billion to 600 million years ago.
When did multicellular plants and fungi colonize land?
500 million years ago.
What is sister taxon to all other insects?
Silverfish
What is adaptive radiation?
The rise of diversity of ecological roles and role specific adaptations within a lineage.
A process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species into a multitude of new forms, particularly when a change in the environment makes new resources available, alters biotic interactions or opens new environmental niches.
How long do most species survive?
1-10 million years.
In relation to extinction what does the hominin fossil record show?
Rapid turnover of species, many surviving less than 1 million years.
How many mass extinctions has there been?
5
When was the largest mass extinction?
At the end of the Permian Period 252 million years ago.
90% of marine species went extinct in less that 0.1 million years.
When was the most recent mass extinction?
End of the Cretaceous period.
Caused by meteor strike.
What marks the ends of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic Eras?
Mass extinctions.