Chapter 26: The Tree of Life

26.1 The Origins of Life

Cell is the basic unit of life.
All cells come from preexisting cells.
Life arose from early bodies of water.
All organisms share fundamental properties of life.
Cellular Organization: all organisms consist of one or more cells.
Sensitivity: Respond to stimuli.
Growth: Use energy to maintain internal order.
Also called metabolism.
Development: Gene changes to grow and mature.
Reproduction: Passing of genes from one generation to the next.
Regulation: Mechanisms that control internal processes.
Homeostasis: Remain constant internal conditions even though
outside environment is constantly changing.
Heredity: DNA allows for adaptation and evolution over time.
Evolution of cells required organic molecules to assemble into an
independent unit.
Life may have had extraterrestrial origins.
Panspermia: life may have not started out on Earth but on some
other planet.
States that meteors carried organic molecules to Earth which
started evolution of life.
Life may have originated on early Earth.
Conditions on early Earth.
The first organisms on Earth lived at very high temperatures.
Earths atmosphere was referred to as a reducing atmosphere,
means there was an abundant amount of hydrogen atoms in the
air.
Organic molecules on early Earth
Miller and Urey conducted an experiment to see what the Earths
early atmosphere was like. When pure hydrogen was put over
liquid water, the key molecules started to form.
Key molecules of life formed in the reducing atmosphere of
the early Earth.
Cells evolved from the functional assembly of organic molecules.

 Organic molecules provide information and energy for

metabolism to function.
RNA can be used in enzyme used in self-replication, may have
been the first genetic material.
Cells need to contain organic molecules in a lipid/protein bubble.
These bubbles were once living cells with cell membranes and

all properties of life.

Eukaryotic cells, sexual reproduction, and multicellularity

contributed to diverse forms of life.

26.2 Classification of Organisms.
Taxonomy is a quest for identity and relationships.
Linnaeus instituted the use of binomial names.
Binomials: two part names of designating species.
Taxonomy: science of classifying living things.
No two species have same scientific name.
First part of scientific name is the species genus. The second
is the particular species.
Taxonomic hierarchies have limitations.
Species organized into larger groups based on shared
characteristics.
The Linnaean hierarchy
Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.
Six kingdoms are: Archaea and Bacteria, Prostista, Fungi,
Plantae, and Animalia.
Limitations of the Hierarchy.
Some higher taxonomic groups descended from a common
ancestor that is not shared with any other groups
(monophyletic).
Two families may not represent clades that originated at the
same time.
Families demonstrate different degrees of biological diversity.
23.3 Grouping Organisms.
The six kingdoms are not necessarily monophyletic.
Of the six kingdoms, four contain eukaryotic organisms. Animalia
and Plantae contain only eukaryotic organisms while Fungi
contain both multi and unicellular organisms.
Eukaryotes that do not fit are put in Protista.
Protists are unicellular.

 Plants and fungi are not motile while animals are.

Animals ingest food, plants make their food, and fungi absorb
theirs by using secreted extracellular enyzmes.
Last kingdom is Archaea and Bacteria.
The three domains probably are monophyletic.
Archaea are different than Bacteria.
There are 3 domains: Domain Archaea, Domain Bacteria, and
Domain Eukarya.
Bacteria are more numerous than any other organism.
Most abundant organisms on Earth.
Archaea may live in extreme environments.
Horizontal gene transfer in microorganisms.
Archaean characteristics
*See packet given in class on 9/6/16*
Three general categories: Methanogens, Extremophiles, and
Nonextreme Archaea.
Methanogens: (1) obtain energy using hydrogen gas to reduce
carbon dioxide to methane gas. (2) Strict anaerobes, poisoned
with oxygen. (3) Live in swamps and intestines of mammals.
Extremophiles types: (1) Thermophiles, live in temperature
from 60

C-80 C. (2) Cold adapted, live in glaciers. (3)

Halophiles, live in salty environments. (4) pH tolerant

archaea which grow in highly acidic to highly basic
environments. (5) Pressure-tolerant archaea, found in

ocean depths, 300 atm- 800 atm.

Nonextreme Archaea: (1) Grow in the same environment as

bacteria do.
Eukaryotes have compartmentalized cells.
Endosymbiosis and the origin of eukaryotes.
Have a complex cellular organization with an endomembrane
system that subdivides the eukaryotic cell into functional
compartments.
Endosymbiosis: theory that proposes that eukaryotic cells
evolved from a symbiosis between different species of
prokaryotes. (One living inside the other).
The Four Kingdoms of Eukaryotes
Key characteristics of the eukaryotes

 *See chart given in class on 9/6/16*

Compartmentalization: Discrete compartments provide
evolutionary opportunities for specialization.
Evolution of nuclear membrane
In eukaryotes, RNA transcripts from nuclear DNA are
processed/transported from the nuclear membrane to the

cytosol, where translation occurs.

Physical separation of transcription and translation in

eukaryotes.
Multicellularity: Differentiation of cell types into tissues and
organs.
True multicellularity is when individual cells are coordinated,
unique to eukaryotes.
Sexual Reproduction: Allows greater genetic diversity due to
meiosis.
First eukaryotic cells were haploid (single set of

chromosomes).
Diploids formed from haploids fusing and then dividing by

mitosis.
Viruses are a special case
Segments of DNA or RNA wrapped in a protein coat.
Cannot reproduce on their own, but can reproduce within cells.
They are not organisms, cannot place them in any kingdom.
26.4 Making Sense of the Protists
Protists are a paraphyletic group.
26.5 Origin of Plants
Land plants arose from an ancestral green alga, evolution
occurred once.
Molecular phylogenetics has identified the closest living relatives of
land plants
Horizontal gene transfer occurred in land plants
Sorting Out the Animals
The origins of segmentation are puzzling
Arthropod phylum contains invertebrates that includes insects,,
annelid phylum, other invertebrate groups, and earthworms.
Evolutionary occurrences of segmentation
Protostome: mouth develops before anus

Two groups: lophotrochozoans (flatworms) and ecdysozoans

(roundworms)
Deuterostome: anus forms before mouth
Molecular details of segmentation
Segmentation co-opted three times
Insects and Crustaceans are sister groups
Arthropods are most diverse group with insects and crustaceans.
Uniramous: single branched appendages
Biramous: two branched appendages
Hox genes and appendages
Hox genes and Distal-less initiate development of unbranched
limbs in insects and branched in crustaceans.
A change in taxonomic relationship
The mammalian family tree is emerging
The four groups of placental mammals
Eutherians: a placental mammal