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Evolution of Biodiversity - Coggle Diagram
Evolution of Biodiversity
Release from competition
Lineages, living or extinct, diversify rapidly
with ecological opportunities. Descendants
of few colonizers in isolated islands and
bodies of water diversify to occupy unique
ecological niches
Examples
Great Lakes of eastern Africa
Honeycreepers in the Hawaiian Islands
Darwin's finches in the Galapagos Islands.
Taxonomically depauperate habitats
such as islands often host organisms
with unique and innovative lifestyles
Example
the larvae of almost all moths and butterflies
are herbivorous, but in the Hawaiian Islands,
the larvae of the moth genus
Eupithecia are specialized for predation
species diversity is reduced
because they are not faced
with as many predators or
superior competitors in their
early ways of life
Fossil records show cases where
the decline or extinction of one group
leads to the proliferation of
a similar ecological group.
Example
Conifers and other gynmosperms declined as angiosperms (flowering plants) diversified.
Mammals radiated after the late Cretaceous extinction of the nonavian dinosaurs
PATTERN HYPOTHESES
competitive displacement
The later group may have caused the extinction of the earlier group by competition
Examples
the great increase in diversity of bivalves, especially after the end Permian mass extinction, 'was accompanied by a decline in diversity of ecologically similar brachiopods
Vascular plants, which certainly compete for space and light, showed exactly this pattern during the Cretaceous, when flowering plants increased in diversity and abundance at the expense of non- flowering plants
RARE and not common
Characteristics
The earlier and later taxa lived in the same place at the same time
They used the share resources
The earlier taxon was not decimated by a mass extinction event
! if the diversity and abundance of the later taxon increased as the earlier one declined.
incumbent replacement
COMMON
Examples
amphichelydians, the "stem group" of turtles, could not retract their heads and necks into their shells.
The great radiation of placental mammals in the early Cenozoic is often credited to the K/T extinction of the last nonavian dinosaurs and other large "reptiles," which may have suppressed mammals by both competition and predatio
Ecological Divergence
The evolution of the ability to use new resources or habitats which contributed significantly to the increase in diversity over time.
The diversification of many tetrapod vertebrate families, (+frogs, snakes, and birds), is because of their expansion into new habitats and feeding habits
The rise in marine animal diversity over the Phanerozoic era can be attributed to evolutionary innovations, (e.g:sand dollars, expanding their ecological space)
Coevolution
Coevolution of predators and
their prey might increase diversity
During the Mesozoic marine revolution, occurred increase in taxonomic diversity and morphological variety of both predators and prey.
Crustaceans and fishes evolved many ways of crushing or tearing molluscs shells, and molluscs evolved many defenses against the new predators, (like spines or thicker shells)
Provinciality
refers to the extent to which the world's biota is divided among different geographic regions
The fauna and flora of the contemporary world are divided into more provinces than ever before in the history of life.
A shift from cosmopolitan to localized distributions of taxa that occurred in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic contribute significantly to the increase in global diversity
In the Paleozoic era, number of faunal provinces among marine animals reached its lowest point in the early Triassic, when surviving higher taxa from the end-Permian mass extinction were widely distributed that only a single global province was recognized by paleontologists
In the Jurassic, Cretaceous, and particularly the Tertiary period, marine animals inhabited an expanding number of latitudinally arranged provinces in the Atlantic and Pacific regions
Changes in the distribution of land masses due to plate tectonic processes are the fundamental cause of this trend
The Environmental Change
Climate change
affected rates of origination
causes increases in extinction
causes changes in the
distribution of habitats and vegetation types
facilitated major changes
in the distributions of taxa,
often leading to diversification.