Belief

system

Aristotle

Naturalist

Fourteenth
century

Alfred
Wallace

Biogeograph
y

How could species which live very far

apart look similar to each other?

Comparative
morphology

Vestigial
parts

Fossils

Nautilus

Ammonite

Nineteenth
Century

Jean
Lamarck

Beagle

route of
Beagle

EQUATOR

Galpagos
Islands

Theory of
uniformity
-

Thomas Malthus
-

The story of Easter

Island

The image cannot be displayed. Your computer may not have enough memory to open the image, or the image may have been corrupted. Restart your computer, and then open the file again. If the red x still appears, you may have to delete the image and then insert it again.

Natural
selection

Observations about populations

Natural populations have an inherent reproductive capacity to increase in

size over time.

As a population expands, resources that are used by its individu-als (such as

food and living space) eventually become limited.

When resources are limited, individuals of a population compete for them.

Observations about genetics

Individuals of a species share certain traits.

Individuals of a natural population vary in the details of their shared traits.

Traits have a heritable basis, in genes. Alleles (slightly different forms of a

gene) arise by mutation.

Inferences

A certain form of a shared trait may make its bearer more com-petitive at
securing a limited resource.

Individuals better able to secure a limited resource tend to leave more

offspring than others of a population.

Thus, an allele associated with an adaptive trait tends to become more

common in a population over generations.

Great minds think

alike

Fossil
s

a
b

Fossilized plant
Ichthyosaur

50 cm

100 cm

Eon
Era
Period
Epoch
mya
Major Geologic and Biological Events

PHANEROZOIC
CENOZOIC
QUATERNARY
Recent
0.01
Modern humans evolve. Major extinction event

Pleistocene

is now underway.

1.8

TERTIARY
Pliocene

5.3
Tropics, subtropics extend poleward. Climate cools;

Miocene

23.0

Oligocene

dry woodlands and grasslands emerge. Adaptive

33.9

radiations of mammals, insects, birds.

Eocene

55.8

Paleocene

65.5
Major extinction event, perhaps precipitated by

MESOZOIC
CRETACEOUS
Late

asteroid impact. Mass extinction of all dinosaurs

99.6
and many marine organisms.

Climate very warm. Dinosaurs continue to dominate. Important

Early

modern insect groups appear (bees, butterflies, termites, ants,

and herbivorous insects including aphids and grasshoppers).

145.5
Flowering plants originate and become dominant land plants.

JURASSIC

Age of dinosaurs. Lush vegetation; abundant gymno-

sperms and ferns. Birds appear. Pangea breaks up.

TRIASSIC

199.6
Major extinction event

Recovery from the major extinction at end of Permian.

Many new groups appear, including turtles, dinosaurs,

pterosaurs, and mammals.

PERMIAN

251
Major extinction event

PALEOZOIC

Supercontinent Pangea and world ocean form. Adaptive

radiation of conifers. Cycads and ginkgos appear. Relatively

dry climate leads to drought-adapted gymnosperms and

299
insects such as beetles and flies.

High atmospheric oxygen level fosters giant arthropods.

CARBONIFEROUS

Spore-releasing plants dominate. Age of great lycophyte

trees; vast coal forests form. Ears evolve in amphibians; penises

evolve in early reptiles (vaginas evolve later, in mammals only).

DEVONIAN

359
Major extinction event

Land tetrapods appear. Explosion of plant diversity leads

to tree forms, forests, and many new plant groups including

416
lycophytes, ferns with complex leaves, seed plants.

SILURIAN

Radiations of marine invertebrates. First appearances of land

fungi, vascular plants, bony fish, and perhaps terrestrial animals

(millipedes, spiders).

443
Major extinction event

ORDOVICIAN

Major period for first appearances. The first land plants, fish,

and reef-forming corals appear. Gondwana moves toward the

488
South Pole and becomes frigid.

CAMBRIAN

Earth thaws. Explosion of animal diversity. Most

major groups of animals appear (in the oceans).

542
Trilobites and shelled organisms evolve.

Oxygen accumulates in atmosphere. Origin of aerobic

PROTEROZOIC

metabolism. Origin of eukaryotic cells, then protists, fungi,

plants, animals. Evidence that Earth mostly freezes over

in a series of global ice ages between 750 and 600 mya.

ARCHAEAN

2,500
3,8002,500 mya. Origin of prokaryotes.

AND

4,6003,800 mya. Origin of Earths crust, first atmosphere,

EARLIER

first seas. Chemical, molecular evolution leads to origin of

life (from protocells to anaerobic prokaryotic cells).

Drifting continents and changing

seas

Kaibab Limestone

Toroweap Formation

Coconino Sandstone

Hermit Shale

Esplanade Sandstone

Wescogame Formation

Manakacha Formation

Watahomigi Formation

Redwall Limestone

Temple Butte Formation

Muav Limestone

Bright Angel Shale

Tapeats Sandstone*

Sixtymile Formation*

Chuar Group*

Nankoweap Formation*

Unkar Group*

Vishnu Basement Rocks*

trench hot spotridge

trench rift

D
coastal mountain
ranges formed this
way.

A Plumes of molten rock

B At oceanic ridges, huge plumes of molten

C At trenches, the advancing

rupture a tectonic plate

rock welling up from Earths interior drive the

edge of one plate plows

at what are called hot

movement of tectonic plates. New crust

under an adjacent plate and

spots. The Hawaiian

spreads laterally as it forms on the surface,

buckles it. The Cascades,

Archipelago has been

forcing adjacent tectonic plates away from the

Andes, and other great

forming this way.

ridge and into trenches elsewhere.

D At rifts,
continents rupture
in their interior as

plates slide apart from

each other.

a
b

Vulnerable to predation

Sexual
dimorphism

Sexual selection