Week Five

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Examples of evolution:

Fossils: Provide solid evidence that organisms from the past aren't the same as those found today. They show a progress of evolution. Scientists can determine the age of fossils and categorize them to determine when organisms lived relative to each other.

Anatomy and Embryology: Presence of structures in organisms that share the same basic form. Scientists call these homologous structures. Unused structures without function are called vestigal structures.

Embryology is the study of development of the anatomy of an organism to its adult form. Provides evidence of relatedness between widely divergent groups of organisms.

Biogeography: Geographic distributions of organisms on the planet following patterns best explained by evolution in conjunciton with the movement of tectonic plates over geologic time.

Molecular Biology: Molecules of life reflect descent with modifications. The relatedness of groups of organisms is reflected in the similarity of their DNA sequences.