The broad pattern of evolution above the species level

Macroevolution

What are the four main stages through which simple cells were first produced

1. Abiotic synthesis of small organic molecules (amino acids and nitrogenous basis)
2.joining of small molecules into macromolecules (proteins, nucleic acids)
3. Packing into protocells
4. Self replicating

Droplets with membranes that maintained an internal chemistry different from that of their surroundings

Protocells

What was earths early atmosphere like?

Reducing environment (electron adding)

Why was it unclear if early earth was to be reducing?

Because it wasn't known if there was enough ammonia and methane

What must all organisms be able to carry out?

Reproduction and metabolism

Fluid filled compartments bounded by a membrane like strucutre

Vesicle

RNA catalysts

Ribozymes

Technique for dating the age of fossils based on the decay of radioactive isotopes

Radioactive dating

Time required for 50% of the parent isotope to decay

Half life

What are the first two eons of earths history?

Archean and protozoic

The last half billion years encompassing most of the time that animals have exisisted on earth

Phanerozoic

What are the three subdivisions of the Phanerozoic time period?

Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic

Are layered rocks that form when certain prokaryotes bind thin films of sediment togather

Stromatolites

What are some of the more complex organizations that eukaryotes have that prokaryotes don't?

Nuclear envelope, mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum, cytoskeleton

Posits that mitochondria and plastids were formerly small prokaryotes living within larger cells

endosymbiont theory

Supposes that mitochondria evolved before plastids through a series of endosymbiotic events

Serial endosymbiosis

Many present day animal phyla appear suddenly in fossils formed early in the Cambrian period

Cambrian explosion

What are the 5 big mass extinctions?

Permian, cretaceous,

Periods of evolutionary change in which groups of organisms form many new species whose adaptations allow them to fill different ecological roles in their communities

Adaptive radiations

An evolutionary change in the rate or timing of developmental events

heterochrony

If reproductive organ development accelerates compared to other organs, the sexually mature stage of a species may retain body features that were juvenile in ancestral species

paedomorphosis

When a structure that has evolved in one context becomes co-opted for another purpose

Exaptations