BIO 258 Notes
WEEK #4.
DARWINISM AND THE FOSSIL RECORD

• The geologic record. Lineages & trends. (Futuyma ch. 5; Minkoff ch. 16, 17A-E; E26).
  • Relative & absolute dating. Geologic time.
  • Fossils and stratigraphy
  • Lineages and trends:
    • primitive vs advanced
    • generalized vs specialized
    • anagenesis vs cladogenesis
  • Descent with modification
  • Family trees and classification
  __________
• Directionalism versus opportunism. (Futuyma ch. 6; Minkoff ch. 18; E27).
  • Directionalism, teleology, finalism, and trends.
  • Branching evolution & opportunism; meaning of opportunism
  • Evidence for opportunism:
    • adaptive radiation
    • mosaic evolution
    • multiple solutions
    • vestigial organs,
    • imperfect adaptations
• Adaptiveness of trends (Minkoff ch. 17F, 19; E28):
  Parallelism, convergence, homologies, variations in rates.
• Evolutionary rates:
  Anagenetic & cladogenetic rates; evolutionary retrogression.
• Example: horses
  • Evolutionary trends
  • Adaptive radiations
  • Variation in rates and direction

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revised Jan. 2006 (2)