[GSC 111] - Final Exam Guide - Comprehensive Notes for the exam (102 pages long!)

• School: University of Miami
• Department: Geological Sciences
• Course: GSC 111
• Professor: Klaus James

Document Summary

Comes from latin word meaning kind or appearance. Global biodiversity- how many species are currently living on earth. Number of know loving species- 1. 9 (chapman 2009) Taxonomy- the discovery, description and classification of different places. Taxonomy is now part of the scientific practice as known as systematics which studies the evolutionary relationships among organisms. Determine the evolutionary history and relationships of organisms (phylogeny) Monophyletic group- contains an ancestor and all of its descendants. Paraphyletic group- does not include all the descendants of an ancestor. Polyphyletic group- does not include the most recent common ancestor. Morphology- shared anatomical structures- skeletal and soft tissues. Time consuming, labor intensive and for the most part inaccurate. Differences in morphology often don"t provide enough information to distinguish species or determine evolutionary relationships. Genomes are huge- took 13 years to sequence the first human genome and now it only takes a day. Protists- really small eukaryotes- the origins of eukaryotic diversity.