Resource: “The Origin of Species” section in Ch. 14 of Campbell Essential Biology With Physiology You must number your answers.
Think about early prehistoric times for humans – a primitive society not an industrialized society. 1. How might natural selection have influenced human choices and behaviors in a prehistoric society? Answer in paragraph form. Natural selection may have been influential when it came to human choices and behaviors in a prehistoric society in that the natural selection process shaping the choices and behaviors of a human. Natural selection gives reward to the individuals that are more adaptive to their own environments in their achievements in the survival and reproductive realm. In fact, all humans belong to the same species. Humans have the possibility to interbreed with each other in nature to produce fertile offspring. This operates at certain gene levels, particular DNA sections that are encoded for proteins to serve as the software for a human’s choices and behaviors in life.
2. What human characteristics might have changed because of this? Answer in paragraph form. The human characteristics might have changed due to evolution being the shifting factor when it comes to the inherited characteristics of biological populations in humans. Processes of evolution show diversity of every level of the biological organizations, including organisms that are individual, species, and molecules that refers to protein and DNA. The homologous characteristic traits and sequences are most common when they are among species that have most recent common ancestors, and can be used to rebuild histories of evolution, using both existing species and the record of fossil. Patterns of biodiversity that exist are shaped by speciation and extinction.
3. How do humans now shape their environment? Answer in paragraph form. Humans have always been a source from their own environment. When the evolution of human intelligence is considered, there is clear sight of how civilizations have the ability to shape their environment and the alterations that have occurred since. Before modern civilization, or the building engineering capability of a human, fossil records show that the statue in the physical realm of early stages in humans have differences. Jaw bones that are broad, as replicated by fossil records give allowance for the chewing and processing of foods that were not tender or soft (Langseth, 2005).
Bone and size fragments that were collected gave suggestion that humans were a much more brute, physical species; unlike the modern humanoid which gave development intellectually rendering sizes that are of less desirable trait. Through evolution humans shrunk in physical size, but the brain size and capacity increased.
4. Are humans now subjected to the same pressures of natural selection as other organisms? Answer in paragraph form. Natural selection pressures take action on every organism that has reproductive difference. When there are differences among members of a people where there are some who may fit their habitat the best. All generations are produced for more persons than the habitat can sustain, including humans. Not all children survive to reproduce neither does any adult that reproduce cover children that survive. The ones that are best fit have the best chance but it is every single one chance and sometimes the best depart this life anyway. Humans seem to level to intraspecific quarrel more than other species because we stayed as generalist rather than specializing. Many societal species evolved specializations to prevent conflict for resources.
5. Define convergent evolution. List the page in your textbook as a reference or your educational internet source. Convergent Evolution includes species from different evolutionary branches that may have certain structures that are superficially similar if natural selection has shaped related adaptations. (pg.287) 6. Define divergent evolution. List the page in your text as a reference or your educational internet source. Divergent evolution occurs when a group from a particular population grows into a species that is new. To adapt to various environmental conditions, the two groups grow into distinct species because of differences in the commands driven by the environmental circumstances. 7. Define adaptive radiation.
List the page in your text as a reference or your educational internet source. Adaptive radiation is defined as the evolution of ecological and phenotypic diversity within a rapidly multiplying lineage. 8. Give an example of convergent evolution and explain how the example fits the definition. An example of convergent evolution is the common nature of the flight/wings of insects, birds, pterosaurs, and bats. Each of the four serves the equivalent function and is related in structure, but each evolved separately. Some aspects of the lens of eyes also evolved separately in a variety of animals.
9. Give an example of divergent evolution and explain how the example fits the definition. A good example of how divergent evolution occurs is in comparing how a human foot evolved to be very different from a monkey’s foot, in spite of their common primate ancestry. It is suspected that a new species (humans) was created because there was no longer a need for swinging from trees. Upright walking on the ground had requirements for alterations in the foot for the better speed and balance. These uncommon traits soon became traits that evolved to permit movement on the ground. Though humans and monkeys are genetically common, their natural habitat required different physical traits to evolve for them to stay alive.
10. Give an example of adaptive radiation and explain how the example fits the definition. A classic example is the evolution of a fourth cusp in the mammalian tooth. This trait shows a vast raise in the sort of foodstuffs which can be utilized, with species that have ability to concentrate on feeding on an array of foodstuffs. The characteristic grew a number of times in different groups during the Cenozoic, and in every instance was instantly followed by an adaptive radiation. Birds discover other ways to give to each other. The evolution of flight opened new ways for evolution to search, initiating adaptive radiation.
References
Cobb, B. (2004).
Evolution, Divergent. In K. L. Lerner & B. W. Lerner (Eds.), The Gale Encyclopedia of Science (3rd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 1543-1544).
Detroit: Gale. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.apollolibrary.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX3418500876&v=2.1&u=uphoenix&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w&asid=aa518b1516772bd7d1d2d24bacc23f52
Sergey Gavrilets and Aaron Vose
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 102, No. 50, Polyspecific Exporter of Toxic Organic Cations (Dec. 13, 2005), pp. 18040-18045 Published by: National Academy of Sciences
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4152724
Divergent Evolution – Species, Fox, Evolve, and Differences – JRank Articles http://science.jrank.org/pages/2609/Evolution-Divergent.html#ixzz2xVV1Q6WQ
Simon, E. J., Reece, J. B., & Dickey, J. L. (2010).
Campbell essential biology with physiology (3rd ed.).
San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings.