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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
Name: ___________________________________ Period: _____ Date: ____________________
14.1 Biogenesis
1. We currently believe in a principle called biogenesis. Describe what this means.
2. Before this principle what did people believe? (name/explain)
Three scientists are credited with disproving the theory of spontaneous generation.
They are named below. Describe their experiments and what they showed.
3. Francesco Redi (1600’s)
4. Lazzaro Spallanzani (1700’s)
5. Louis Pastuer (mid 1800’s)
14.2 Earth’s History
6. About ______ billion years ago, our solar system was a swirling mass of __________
and _____________.
7. What happened to make the planets and how long do scientists think that took?
8. One way to tell the age of something is to use radiometric dating (also called
absolute dating). Some isotopes of atoms have unstable nuclei which undergo
__________________________ ________________; that is, their nuclei release
particles or radiant energy or both. These are called __________________________
_______________________.
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
9. The length of time it takes for one ½ of any sample size to decay is called the
____________________ ____________________.
10. One theory of how organic compounds were first made was proposed by Oparin
and Haldane. Explain their theory.
11. Miller and Urey proved Oparin and Haldane’s theory y producing a number of
organic compounds, including ___________________ _______________.
12. An opposing theory states that these organic compounds may have come from
__________________ ________________.
14.3 The First Life Forms
(skip to The First Cells)
13. Many scientists think that __________________ or ________ oxygen gas existed on
early Earth.
14. The first forms of life on Earth were probably similar to archaea alive today.
Archaea are:
 ________________________________ (refers to number of cells)

Thrive under extremely ________________________ environments

Obtain energy by _____________________________. Explain what this is.
15. Some forms of life had become photosynthetic by __________________________
years ago, including ______________________________, a group of photosynthetic,
unicellular prokaryotes.
16. Many scientists think that it took _____________________________ years or more for
oxygen gas to reach today’s levels.
17. Describe how the first prokaryotes might have formed, and what organelles
developed from this process.
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
15.1 History of Evolutionary Thought
18. The development of new types of organisms from preexisting types of organisms
over time is called __________________________. Modern scientists also define it
as a heritable change in characteristics within a population from one
generation to the next.
19. A theory is a _____________________________ explanation for that incorporates
many __________________________, _____________________________ and tested
__________________________.
20. What were some of the thoughts scientists had in the 1800’s?
21. If you are looking at a bunch of rock (or strata) layers together, which one is the
oldest? Explain why.
22. A scientists named Cuvier made some important observations:
 Some organisms in the past _______________________ greatly from any
living species and some had become ________________________.

Deeper and ________________________ strata hold fossils that are
______________________________ different from living species.

Many ______________________ changes in the kinds of organisms found in
one rock strata compared to the next.
23. What were his conclusions based on these observations?
24. How did Lyell add to/change Cuvier’s conclusions?
25. Lamarck believed:

that populations or organisms ______________________ over time

that simple organisms could arise from _______________________ matter.
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution

simple forms of life develop into _________________________ forms.

Individuals could acquire ___________________ during their lifetime as a
result of __________________________ or behavior and pass those traits to
offspring.
26. What did Lamarck call his idea?
27. Who, besides Darwin, came up with a theory of evolution?
28. Describe descent with modification.
29. Explain these four parts of natural selection:

Over production of offspring

Genetic variation

Struggle to survive

Differential reproduction
15.2 Evidence of Evolution
30. What is the Law of Superposition?
31. Define these terms and explain how they are different:

Relative age

Absolute age

How are these two different?
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
32. Here are some inferences that can be made from the fossil record:

different organisms lived at __________________________ times.

today’s organisms are __________________________________ those of the past.

fossils found in adjacent layers are __________________ like each other than
organisms that lived in widely separated time periods.

by comparing fossils and rocks from around the world, we can infer
__________________ and __________________ different organisms existed.

Species have differed in a _____________________ ______________________ of forms
over time.
33. What are transitional species?
34. How can you explain that humans, penguins, alligators and bats all have similar
arm bones?
35. Anatomical structures that occur in different species and that originated by
heredity in a recent ancestor are called _____________________________
structures. Give an example.
36. Analogous structures have closely related features, but do not derive from the
__________________ ___________________________ structure. Give an example.
37. _____________________ __________________________ seem to serve no function, but
resemble structures with functional roles in related organisms. Give an
example.
38. How can DNA be used to show organisms are related?
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
39. Although modern evolutionary theory can never be “proven,” it is widely accepted
and applied by scientists because it ___________________________ the broadest
range of observations and makes useful _____________________________.
15.3 Evolution in Action
Define the following terms:
40. Convergent evolution
41. Divergent evolution
42. Adaptive radiation
43. Artificial Selection
44. Coevolution
16.1 Genetic Equilibrium
45. In your own words, what is population genetics?
46. Describe how variations in population occur. (There is more than one answer…)
47. All the genetic information in a population is its _____________ _______________.
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
48. Over time __________________ frequencies in a population can change
dramatically, but ____________________ frequencies tend to remain the same.
This is referred to as __________________________ ___________________
_________________________ and assumes 5 conditions:
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Exceptions to this result in evolution of a population.
16.2 Disruption of Genetic Equilibrium
49. How frequently do mutations occur and how do they affect genetic equilibrium?
50. Describe gene flow and how it affects genetic equilibrium (giving an example).
51. Describe genetic drift. How is the size of the population important for the effects
of genetic drift (give an example to illustrate your answer)
52. Many species do not mate randomly. Describe some things (3 are mentioned)
that cause nonrandom mating.
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
Evolution relies on natural selection, which disrupts genetic equilibrium. Describe
each of these means of natural selection and give an example of it in action.
53. Stabilizing selection
54. Disruptive selection
55. Directional selection
16.3 Formation of Species
56. The process of species formation is called _________________________. There are
two different ways to decide if something is a different species:
a. by looking at its internal structures and external appearance, called
_____________________________. What are some limitations to this?
b. __________________________ speciation, where new species can not breed with
the old one. What are some limitations to this?
57. One way that new species develop is through __________________, where two parts
of a population stop breeding.
This can happen in several ways. Explain and give an example of each:
58. Geographic Isolation:
59. reproductive isolation (there’s more than 1 way…the names aren’t
important, though the processes are)
60. Changes in population can happen slowly over time. This is called
___________________________. But sometimes fossil evidence shows changes
happen quickly. This is called _____________________ _______________________.
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
Name: ___________________________________ Period: _____ Date: ____________________
14.1 Biogenesis
1. We currently believe in a principle called biogenesis. Describe what this means.
Living things come only from other living things
2. Before this principle what did people believe? (name/explain)
Spontaneous generation—living things could
come from nonliving materials (cloth + wheat =
mice)
Three scientists are credited with disproving the theory of spontaneous generation.
They are named below. Describe their experiments and what they showed.
3. Francesco Redi (1600’s)
used meat in a jar with a screen over it to show
maggots came from eggs, not from the meat itself
4. Lazzaro Spallanzani (1700’s)
boiled broth to kill microbes
left 1 open and it spoiled, closed
the other and it stayed unspoiled.
People said that sealing it left
out a “vital force” of life that is in
the air.
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
5. Louis Pastuer (mid 1800’s)
Swan necked flasks- boiled broth in special
flasks and left them open. That let the “vital force”
in. They remain unspoiled to this day.
14.2 Earth’s History
5_ billion years ago, our solar system was a swirling mass of _gas_
and _dust_.
6. About _
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
7. What happened to make the planets and how long do scientists think that took?
Gravity pulled particles in, they collided and
stuck and eventually formed the planets
About 400 million years
8. One way to tell the age of something is to use radiometric dating (also called
absolute dating). Some isotopes of atoms have unstable nuclei which undergo
radioactive_ _decay_; that is, their nuclei release particles or
_
radiant energy or both. These are called _
radioactive_ _isotopes_.
9. The length of time it takes for one ½ of any sample size to decay is called the
half_ _life_.
_
10. One theory of how organic compounds were first
made was proposed by Oparin
and Haldane. Explain their theory.
The atmosphere contained
ammonia, methane, water and
carbon dioxide that made
organic compounds under high
temperatures
11. Miller and Urey proved Oparin and Haldane’s
theory producing a number of organic compounds,
including _
amino_ _acids_.
12. An opposing theory states that these organic compounds may have come from
outer_ _space_.
_
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
14.3 The First Life Forms
(skip to The First Cells)
little
no
13. Many scientists think that _
_ or _
_ oxygen gas existed on
early Earth.
14. The first forms of life on Earth were probably similar to archaea alive today.
Archaea are:



unicellular_ (refers to number of cells)
Thrive under extremely _harsh_ environments
Obtain energy by _chemosynthesis_. Explain what this is.
Using chemicals to make energy, instead of
light
_
15. Some forms of life had become photosynthetic by _3
billion_ years ago,
cyanobacteria_, a group of photosynthetic, unicellular
including _
prokaryotes.
16. Many scientists think that it took _
a billion or more_ years or more for
oxygen gas to reach today’s levels.
17. Describe how the first eukaryotes might have formed, and what organelles
developed from this process.
About 2 billion to 1.5 billion years ago, a
prokaryote (bacteria) was eaten by a eukaryote and
multiplied inside as mitochondria
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
15.1 History of Evolutionary Thought
18. The development of new types of organisms from preexisting types of organisms
evolution
over time is called _
_. Modern scientists also define it as a
heritable change in characteristics within a population from one generation to
the next.
well-supported_ explanation that incorporates
many _observations_, _inferences_ and tested
_hypothesis_.
19. A theory is a _
20. What were some of the thoughts scientists had in the 1800’s?
all species were static (unchanging) and Earth
was only thousands of years old
21. If you are looking at a bunch of rock (or strata) layers together, which one is the
oldest? Explain why.
The ones on the bottom…the others formed on
top of them.
22. A scientists named Cuvier made some important observations:


differed_ greatly from any living
species and some had become _extinct_.
Deeper and _older_ strata hold fossils that are _increasingly_
Some organisms in the past _
different from living species.

sudden
Many _
_ changes in the kinds of organisms found in one
rock strata compared to the next.
23. What were his conclusions based on these observations?
Catastrophes caused extinctions at certain
times in Earth’s past (theory called catastrophism)
24. How did Lyell add to/change Cuvier’s conclusions?
He said that the process that shapes Earth’s
surface are the same ones that worked in the past.
(called uniformitarianism)
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
25. Lamarck believed:




change_ over time
that simple organisms could arise from _non-living_ matter.
simple forms of life develop into _more complex_ forms.
Individuals could acquire _traits_ during their lifetime as a result of
_experience_ or behavior and pass those traits to offspring.
that populations or organisms _
26. What did Lamarck call his idea?
Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics
27. Who, besides Darwin, came up with a theory of evolution?
Alfred Russell Wallace
28. Describe descent with modification.
The idea that you get traits from your parents
through reproduction, and species can change over
time
29. Explain these four parts of natural selection:

Over production of offspring
More babies are made than will survive

Genetic variation
In a population, individuals have
different traits

Struggle to survive
Individuals compete to survive (food,
water, shelter…)

Differential reproduction
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
Only organisms that are best adapted to
their environment will survive and
reproduce
15.2 Evidence of Evolution
30. What is the Law of Superposition?
If rocks are undisturbed, the oldest ones are on
the bottom
31. Define these terms and explain how they are different:

Relative age
Compares one fossil to another (tells if older or
younger)

Absolute age
Estimates the age (gives a number of how old
or young)

How are these two different?
Relative tells if older or younger. Absolute tells
how much.
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
32. Here are some inferences that can be made from the fossil record:



different_ times.
today’s organisms are _different_ those of the past.
fossils found in adjacent layers are _more_ like each other than organisms
different organisms lived at _
that lived in widely separated time periods.

by comparing fossils and rocks from around the world, we can infer _
when_
and _where_ different organisms existed.

Species have differed in a _
gradual_ _sequence_ of forms over time.
33. What are transitional species?
Have features between and early and later
species (“missing links”)
34. How can you explain that humans, penguins,
alligators and bats all have similar arm bones?
Means they had a common
ancestor that later evolved into
four different species
35. Anatomical structures that occur in different
species and that originated by heredity in a recent
homologous_ structures.
ancestor are called _
Give an example.
See #34…they are
homolgous
36. Analogous structures have closely related features,
same__
but do not derive from the _
ancestral_ structure. Give an example.
Birds, Bats and moths all
_
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have wings, but of different shapes and structures
so they came from different ancestors
Vestigial_ _structures_ seem to serve no function, but
37. _
resemble structures with functional roles in related organisms. Give an
example.
Human tailbone and appendix
38. How can DNA be used to show organisms are related?
More the base sequence is similar; the more
closely related the species are
39. Although modern evolutionary theory can never be “proven,” it is widely accepted
explains_ the broadest range of
observations and makes useful _predictions_.
and applied by scientists because it _
15.3 Evolution in Action
Define the following terms:
40. Convergent evolution
Different species evolve similar traits
(analogous structures)
41. Divergent evolution
1 ancestor evolves into many others
(homologous structures)
42. Adaptive radiation
1 species evolves to fit many different niches
(purposes) in an ecosystem
43. Artificial Selection
Traits are chosen to be passed on (e.g.
plant/animal breeding)
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
44. Coevolution
2 species evolve together (e.g. humans and
bacteria in us)
16.1 Genetic Equilibrium
45. In your own words, what is population genetics?
Studying the traits of an entire population rather
than just 1 or two examples (like Punnett squares)
46. Describe how variations in population occur. (There is more than one answer…)





Environmental factors (e.g. amt. food)
Heredity…what gets passed on (family
resemblance)
Mutations in genes
Recombination from indep. assort in meiosis
Random pairing of gametes during fertilization
47. All the genetic information in a population is its _
gene_ _pool_.
phenotypic_ frequencies in a population can change
dramatically, but _allele_ frequencies tend to remain the same. This is
referred to as _Hardy-Weinberg__ _Genetic_
_Equilibrium_ and assumes 5 conditions:
a. no mutations occur
b. no one enters or leaves the population
c. the population is large
d. individuals mate randomly
e. selection does not occur (no natural
selection)
48. Over time _
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
Exceptions to this result in evolution of a population.
16.2 Disruption of Genetic Equilibrium
49. How frequently do mutations occur and how do they affect genetic equilibrium?
Constantly, but at very low rates (and remember,
we learned that most of them are in “junk” DNA, or
produce no effect in amino acid sequence change
or protein shape/function)
50. Describe gene flow and how it affects genetic equilibrium (giving an example).
Genes move from one population to another
through emigration/immigration
As animals migrate, they take their genes with
them and leave behind a different
allele/phenotypic frequency
51. Describe genetic drift. How is the size of the population important for the effects
of genetic drift (give an example to illustrate your answer)
Allele frequency changes as a result of random
events, e.g. tsunami wipes out a plant species.
Smaller populations are more susceptible to
extinction form events like this. E.g. elephant seals
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are all homozygous. e.g. breeding programs at
zoos.
52. Many species do not mate randomly. Describe some things (3 are mentioned)
that cause nonrandom mating.



Geographic proximity: organisms mate with
what is close to them geographically
Select traits similar to their own (assortive
mating)
Sexual selection: mates are often chosen not
randomly, but for desirable traits, e.g birds
bright feathers
Evolution relies on natural selection, which disrupts genetic equilibrium. Describe
each of these means of natural selection and give an example of it in action.
53. Stabilizing selection
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The “average” of the trait
survives; the extremes
are least fit; “just right”
is best
e.g. lizards…bigger and
smaller (slower)caught
by prey
54. Disruptive selection
Both extremes of the trait
survive the best; biggest
or smallest survive
e.g. shells white blends
against white rocks,
dark blends against
dark rocks, in between
don’t blend and get eaten
55. Directional selection
Only one extreme is best for
survival
e.g. anteaters, longest
tongue gets more ants
16.3 Formation of Species
speciation
56. The process of species formation is called _
_. There are
two different ways to decide if something is a different species:
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
a. by looking at its internal structures and external appearance, called
morphology__. What are some limitations to this?
__
May look different, but still be able to
reproduce
Biological_ speciation, where new species can not breed with
b. _
the old one. What are some limitations to this?
Don’t know for extinct species if they were
actually their own species, and some things don’t
reproduce sexually
57. One way that new species develop is through _
of a population stop breeding.
isolation_, where two parts
This can happen in several ways. Explain and give an example
of each:
58. Geographic Isolation:
Become physically separated, e.g.
river forms, continents move
Eventually, have separate gene
pools and can no longer reproduce
with each other (allopatric speciation)
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Ch 14 - 16 Reading Guide: History of Life and Theory of Evolution
59. Reproductive Isolation (there’s more than 1 way…the
names aren’t important, though the processes are)
still live in same geographic place
but reproduce differently (sympatric
speciation)
e.g. different times or use different
mating calls.
60. Changes in population can happen slowly over time. This is called
gradualism_. But sometimes fossil evidence shows changes happen
quickly. This is called _punctuated_ _equilibrium_.
__
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