What is Biogeography? (2 things)
The study of the geographic distribution of organisms and how they have gotten to be where they are today.
interpreting influence of evolutionary relationships
What is the latitudinal diversity gradient?
Basically: there are more animals near and around the equator, with population numbers dwindling around the poles. It is active, not static.
Who are some key people in biogeography? what did these mfs even do??? (CACA)
Charles Darwin: Evolution and Natural selection (duh)
Alfred Russel Wallace: Provided new info on faunal provinces and formalized many biogeographical ideas around today
Carolus Linnaeus: Classification method for species
Alfred Wegener: Plate tectonics and Continental drift
What was Sclater
- Looked at the composition of fauna in a given biome and compared them.
Explain Wallace’s line (where/what it was, what types of animals)
What evidence supports such a drastic change in fauna in and around the Wallace boundary?
Water around Asian islands was shallower
Water between Asian islands and Australian islands was much deeper
Is Wallace’s boundary an example of sympatric or allopatric evolution?
Allopatric Evolution!
Wallace’s boundary is evidence of reproductive isolation between populations via a geographical barrier
Define Allopatric evolution and Sympatric evolution
Allopatric: ancestors split and evolve differently due to a geographic barrier (no gene exchange)
Sympatric: ancestors evolve into different groups without this barrier
what are the 3 types of allopatric speciation? (PVP)
Peripatric: isolated peripheral group
Vicariant: extrinsic barrier (think mountian)
Parapatric: large geographic area
What are some ecological factors affecting biogeographical influences on speciation? (6)
Moisture, temp, soil chemistry, light, food/nutrient availability, competition
what areas or (biomes) have high biodiversity and endemic species? (2)
mountains and islands
how could an ice age geographically affect a population? ie. why are they important? (4)
what are the 3 main extinction hypotheses?
humans: overkill
climate: over-chill
Extraterrestrial impact: over-grill
what is some evidence for megafaunal extinction due to humans? (3) think wooly mammoths
what is some evidence for climate induced “over-chill” extinciton? (3)
what is some evidence for extraterrestrial “over-grill” extinction? (4)
What is the ecological impact of megafauna in their habitat? (size, eating habits)
How does evidence for over-killing hold up on a global scale?
not that great! while there is a strong case for it in Australia, the data is pretty scarce everywhere else. (like in NA we have evidence of hunting but no kill sites, yet ~70 extinct megafauna)
Define extinction (both local and global)
global: complete elimination of a species
local(extirpation): local elimination, can be reversed! sometimes a speices can be reintroduced
what is gamblers ruin? (bad luck)
how many major and minor extinctions were there?
5 major: extremely high extinction rates
12 minor: higher extinction rates than normal, not always widespread
It seems like extinction events decrease in intensity through the phanerozoic, what could this mean? (3)
what was the third largest extinction? what happened? what is to blame?
what triggered the ordovician-silurian?
PLANTS! “Reverse greenhouse”: burial of organic matter –> cooling, glaciation, lower seas, no shallow habitat