Famous people

Question 1

Alfred Wallace

Answer 1

Carried out pioneering work on speciation
Well known for his work on warning colours in animals
Co-discovered natural selection with darwin

Question 2

Carl Linnaeus

Answer 2

Developed a tiered system to classify organisms
A sweedish biologist born in 1707
Came up with a way of naming species by its genus and species (Homo Sapiens)

Question 3

Charles Darwin

Answer 3

Published his natural selection theory in “On the Origin of Species” 1859
Helped to discover the laws of inheritance
His theory challenged the belief that God created all organisms on earth

Question 4

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Answer 4

that changes that occur in an organism during its lifetime can be inherited. We now know that in the vast majority of cases
this type of inheritance cannot occur.

Question 5

Gregor mendel

Answer 5

In the mid-19th century Gregor Mendel carried out breeding experiments on plants.
One of his observations was that the inheritance of each characteristic is determined by ‘units’ that are passed on to descendants unchanged.
In the late 19th century behaviour of chromosomes during cell division was observed.
In the early 20th century it was observed that chromosomes and Mendel’s ‘units’ behaved in similar ways. This led to the idea that the ‘units’, now called genes, were located on chromosomes.
In the mid-20th century the structure of DNA was determined and the mechanism of gene function worked out.
This scientific work by many scientists led to the gene theory being developed

Question 6

Linnaeus system

Answer 6

Linnaeus classified living things into kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. Organisms are named by the binomial system of genus and species.

Question 7

Domains

Answer 7

Carl Woese
* archaea (primitive bacteria usually living in extreme environments)
* bacteria (true bacteria)
* eukaryota (which includes protists, fungi, plants and animals).

Question 8

Mendel limitations

Answer 8

He did not publish his work in a scientific journal
People weren’t aware of genes, DNA or chromosomes

Question 9

Darwin limitations

Answer 9

• Most people believed the idea that God made all the animals and plants that live on Earth
• Many scientists felt there wasn’t enough evidence at the time
• That the way characteristics are inherited and the cause of variation (genes) was not known until 50 years after the theory was published.