GEOLGY 307 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Macroevolution, Hydronym, Monophyly
Document Summary
Book note: chapter 2 evolution, phylogeny, and classification. Paleontologists are scientists who study fossils, base their understanding of the history of life on the fossil record, which comprises all the fossil discovered as well as those awaiting discovery. Evolution simply defined as the origin and change of groups of organisms over time. Charles darwin argued that organisms adapted the environments in which they lived. When the environment changes those organisms that one better at coping with the changed environment are more successful which, means they reproduce more organisms are less able to cope with change. The most successful organisms are thus selected for and those least successful are selected against. Evolution by natural selection is also called darwinian evolution, the evolutionary history of a group of organisms is diagrammed by a family tree (or genealogy) of populations going through natural selection. Phylogeny is the family tree of a group of evolving organism.
