Organizing The Living World

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Adaptive radiation:

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a cluster of closely related species that are each adaptively specialized to a specific habitat or food source.

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Advanced characters:

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different then the ancestral,*** evolved from the primitive state.

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Analogous:

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are homoplasies, phenotypic similarities that evolved independently in different lineages. Ex: Flattened tails of aquatic mammals. Serve a similar function in different species. They don’t supply any information about relatedness so they are excluded from phylogenic analysis.

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Apomorphy:

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the derived trait, (1) the new innovation, used solely as a cladistics term.

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Artificial taxonomy:

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The Greeks collect many folk taxonomies while travelling. They write down the lists, instead of memorizing them like all previous cultures. This allows the lists to get larger and larger, since it no longer has to be passed down by word.

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Autoapomorphy:

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a distinctive anatomical feature, known as a derived trait, that is unique to a given terminal group.
- That is, it is found only in one member of a clade, but not found in any others or out group taxa, not even those most closely related to the group

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Binomen:

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the name of a species, Latin therefore in italics, genus capitalized, species is not,
- termed by linneas

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Camera eye:

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A trait that develops independently in two groups of organisms. This is chosen due to the principle of parsimony. If it hadn’t of evolved independently twice, then there would be 6 events: 1 to make it appear, and 5 to go away.
- is now in mollusks and vertebrates
- very unique, both are morphologically different, though they have the same function.
- Vertebrates have blind spot. Retina nerve different***

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Character convergence:

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The traits are structurally similar even though they appeared independently in taxa that didn’t have an immediate common ancestor. Flight in birds and bats is a character that is said to be convergent for both groups since there’s no common ancestor to both bats and birds that processed the ability to fly.

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Character polarity:

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implies a distinction for a given character between an ancestral state and a derived state.
- established through out group comparison

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Character reversal:

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A character reversal happens when a character that is unique to a taxon group reverts to more ancestral level in a taxan within this group. Ex:
- presence of wings is a unique character for insect, but many species, distributed among many orders do not have wings. And they have winged ancestors. (fleas, lice,)
- (1) to (0)

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Clade:

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Monophyletic lineage
- an organism and all its descendants

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Cladistics:

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emerged in the 1950s and 60s, because of the lack of clarity in classifications based on two distinct phenomena, branching evolution and morphological divergence.
- Therefore started classifying based on evolutionary relationships only.
- Henning, german entomologist
- Produces phylogentic hypothesizes and classification that reflect only the branching pattern of evolution, ignores morphological divergence.
- Groups together species that share derived traits.

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Cladogram:

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Phylogenic tress produced by cladists that illustrate the hypothesized sequence of evolutionary branching, with a hypothetical ancestor at each branching point.
- portray strictly monophyletic groups
- built using the principle of parsimony
-

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Classical taxonomy:

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- Based on morphology and anatomy
- ***

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Classification:

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: is an arrangement of organisms into hierarchical groups that reflect their relatedness. **

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Common ancestor:

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- evolutionary biology
- the last ancestor from which the two species in question have in common and descended from
- a homologous trait has to be present in the common ancestor
- helps define monophyletic groups

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Convergent evolution:

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when two species evolve to be more and more similar based on similar selective pressure, and the need to fill certain niches. However they do not have a recent common ancestor. Ex: The wings of bats, pterodactyls, birds and insects. All developed independently but carry out the same function and even share morphological similarities.

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Dendrogram:

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a tree diagram frequently used to illustrate the arrangement of the clusters produced by hierarchical clustering. Dendrograms are often used in computational biology to illustrate the clustering of genes or samples.
- not as descriptive as cladograms, which are made with cladistic, whereas dendrograms are generally based on morphologically and anatomical similarities****

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Derived characters

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: new forms of traits, provide the most useful information about evolutionary relationships because once a derived character becomes established, it is usually present it all of that species descendants. Also helps find which way a character has evolved. Ex: vertebral column.

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Dichotomy:

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a dichotomy is a division of organisms into two groups, typically based on a characteristic present in one group and absent in the other. Such dichotomies are used as part of the process of identifying species. Ex: Does it have a backbone?

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Divergent evolution:

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when similar organisms or same species evolve away or split into new species of organisms.
- Divergent evolution is the process by which related lineages develop different biological, genetic, and behavioral traits over time.
- Natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift, gene flow, and mutation are the processes that drive these changes.
- When enough small changes accumulate in closely related but isolated populations, speciation might occur.
- Ex: forelimbs of horses, humans, whales. Similar morphology, specialized for its own specific function.
- Homologous traits
- Opposite of convergent evolution

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Evolutionary taxonomy:

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- rules to organize
- Hierarchy
- based on evolutionary relationships: where similar things a grouped together based on their evolutionary relationship.
- systematics

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Folk taxonomy:

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- the taxonomies of the most ancient cultures and isolated populations. There is always a system. Usually dichotomous, and hierarchal. Such as animate vs. inanimate. Food vs. medicinal.
- rain forest, new guinea tribes. They all do this.
- usually have 600 elements within these categories. Depends on where they are located. Inuits: snow, ice.... dominate it.
- Usually the information is held by one individual in the community that is considered wise and passed down in spoken word.

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Fungi:

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- eukaryotic kingdom
- Heterotrophic
- yeasts and molds
- various life cycles
- Excretes enzyme and breaks everything externally, and absorbs nutrients.
- arrived in carboniferous period to feed on the plant remains, that had no way of breaking down.
- Experts at breaking down lignin.

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Hierarchical:

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- Used in many taxonomic systems
- Associated with Linnaeus****