Palaeobiodiversity

Question 1

What is biodiversity?

Answer 1

Variety of life in all its manifestations. It encompasses all forms, levels and combinations of natural variation

Question 2

What is the taxic appraoch to measure biodiversity in extant organisms?

Answer 2

1) Examine rate of discovery curves

2) Extrapolate from intensive local sampling

Question 3

What can some discovery curves show?

Answer 3

Discovery of mammals has massively slowed down over time - indicates we have probably described most mammals on Earth

Still describing multiple insects - around 7000 new species described every year

Question 4

How is fossil biodiversity measured?

Answer 4

At prescribed intervals of time, measure the:

• morphological diversity (known as the disparity)

-number of taxa (at species, genera, family etc level)

Question 5

What are the 3 main problems with the fossil record when trying to interpret biodiversity?

Answer 5

It is incomplete and biased

Can we recognise different features of species in the fossil record to not classify them as different species

Are Linnean hierarchies equivalent for different groups of organisms

Question 6

What needs to be able to be distinguished when trying to describe species in the fossil record to not mistake things for separate species?

Answer 6

Ontogenetic stages

Sexual dimorphisms

Diseased individuals

Ecophenotypes

Question 7

What percentage of species that have ever lived do the extant species represent?

Answer 7

2-4%

Question 8

What are the three types of models for biodiversity increase?

Answer 8

Additive

Logistic

Exponential

Question 9

What were the 3 evolutionary faunas?

Answer 9

Cambrian

Palaezoic

Mesozoic

Question 10

Is there more diversity of land or in marine environments? Why?

Answer 10

On land, 5-6 more times diverse

Land is more heterogenous

More vegetation variation and diversification causes an increase in diversity

Question 11

What is pull of the recent?

Answer 11

More recent rock is exposed than older rock so get a better fossil record through time

Question 12

What are some models for the explanation for the patterns of biodiversity?

Answer 12

Equilibrium model - biodiversity ceiling is due to diversity damping factors or limiting/equilibirum factors e.g. competative exclusion, carrying capacity

Expansion model - there is no biodiversity ceiling and things keep expanding until hit a mass extinction event

Question 13

When do flowering plants evolve?

Answer 13

The cretaceous