Biology HSC Syllabus - Blueprint of Life - All Dot Points Answered
9.3 Blueprint of Life:1. Evidence of evolution suggests that the mechanisms of inheritance, accompanied by selection, allow change over many generations:Outline the impact on the evolution of plants and animals of:Changes in the physical conditions in the environment:Changes in the chemical condition in the environment:Competition for resources:Evolutionary theory states that all organisms have developed from previous organisms and that all living things have a common ancestor in some initial form of primitive life.
It also states that all organisms are fundamentally similar because their basic chemistry was inherited from this very first organism.
Changes in the Physical Environment:The Earth has continually changed since life first evolved.
Various changes in sea levels, the splitting of the continents and great changes in climate are just some of the environmental changes that life on Earth have had to cope with, or become extinct.
Changes in the environment force species to either die out, or survive and diversify.
An Example - The Peppered Moth:Prior to the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th Century, the majority of the Peppered moths were light coloured. They survived better as they could camouflage against the white lichen on the trees.
Post-revolution, the pollution caused the trees to blacken with soot. The trees could no longer hide white moths. The darker variant of the moth was better able to hide, and so the population of the Peppered moth shifted from mainly white to mainly dark.
This is how a change in the environment can affect the evolution of an organism.
Changes in the Chemical Environment:In the early years of life, the environment on earth was chemically unable to support life as we know it todayAn anaerobic atmosphere prevented the growth of any aerobic organismsHowever, as organisms evolved special pigments that allowed them to exploit the carbon dioxide in...
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