Science- Grade 9-Sussex College- Wennappuwa

The Evolutionary Process

Evolution is the way that living things change over time.

The first person who explained how evolution happens was Charles Darwin with his scientific
theory of natural selection.

Charles Darwin observed that although individuals in a species shared similarities, they were
not exact copies of each other; there were small differences or variations between them. He
also noticed that everything in the natural world was in competition.

The winners were those that had characteristics which made them better adapted for survival.
For example, they were stronger, faster, cleverer or more attractive than others in their
species. These living things were more likely to reproduce and pass on their useful
characteristics to their offspring.

Individuals that were poorly adapted were less likely to survive and their characteristics were
not as likely to be inherited.

Over time, the characteristics that help survival become more common and a species gradually
changes. Given enough time, these small changes can add up to the extent that a new species
altogether can evolve. Diversity of living organisms in our environment is a result of the
evolutionary process.

In the past there were many beliefs about the origin of the universe.

It is believed that the origin of the Earth took place about 4.5 billion years ago. There are two
scientific explanations of origin.

 Nebular theory : It is an explanations of the origin of the solar system.

According to this theory, small particles of materials in the universe drew together
by the force of gravity, clumped up and the galaxies, the sun and other planets were
formed.
 Big Bang theory: This is the modern theory about the origin of the
Earth that we believe today . According to this theory, universe was an energy source. Giant
explosion took place in it and large clouds of dust particles were created. These dust particles
clumped up together and the galaxies were created.

 It is said in the big bang theory, that our solar system was created in the galaxy known
as the milky way galaxy.
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Origin of the Earth

 At the origin , the Earth had been a very hot object and its volcanic activities were high.
The Earth got gradually cooled and less volatile( evaporative) metals with high density
formed the core of the Earth.

 It is believed that Earth's crust was created by light silicon rocks. Various types of
elements at the centre of the Earth reacted with each other and different types of gases
were formed.

 At the origin, atmosphere of the Earth had gases such as Carbon dioxide (CO2), Methane
(CH4) and Hydrogen sulphide (H2S). The absence of Oxygen (O2) in the early atmosphere
is a significant fact. That is why life did not originate at the beginning.

 At the beginning, extreme heat of the Earth has caused evaporation the water on the
planet. This evaporated water got condensed and rain clouds were formedThere had
been continuous heavy rains on the Earth for many years. This rain water which was rich
with minerals, collected in lower lands and oceans were formed.

Origin of life on the Earth

. It is believed that about 3.5 billion years ago life originated on the Earth.
The theories about origin of life on the Earth.

Theory of special creation

According to this theory all living organisms on Earth were created by a super
natural power. Since there is no scientific evidence to prove this theory scientist do
not pay attention to it.

Spontaneous generation theory

This theory states that life was originated from non-living things in a spontaneous
manner.
e.g.
 Rats were born from pieces of clothes
 Maggots were born from rotten meat
 Weevils were born from decayed wood

The Spontaneous generation theory has been effectively disproved by the

experiments conducted by the scientist Louis Pasteur( his experiments proved that organisms
not spontaneously generated, but they developed by a process).
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Cosmozoic theory
This theory suggests that, the living materials might have got established on Earth
from a fallen meteor with living organisms or by spacecrafts from other planets.
This theory has not been proved scientifically.

Theory of biochemical evolution

 This theory confirms that at the beginning of the Earth, the gases in the atmosphere
reacted with each other to generate ingredients for the life - possible were formed.

 These materials dissolved in rain water and collected with ocean water. This mixture is
known as the primordial soup.

 It is believed that the energy required for above process was supplied by electric
discharges during lightning, eruption of volcanoes and by the ultra violet radiation of the
sun.
 The first living cell or the pre-cell appeared as a result of a bio chemical reaction in
primordial soup.
 The first organism was unicellular and was considered anaerobic and heterotrophic.
 Scientists have experimentally shown that the first living cell was created by the
primordial soup.

The first form of life and origin of organisms on Earth

 The first form of life or the first organism on the Earth is considered as a simple
unicellular bacteria.
 Then, the first photosynthetic organisms, unicellular algae were formed. After that
a gaseous oxygen containing atmosphere was formed.

 Many changes took place in the body of unicellular organisms with the long period of
time and evolve the multicellular organisms were born. Gradually tissues, organs and
systems were specialized within these multicellular organisms and the world of
animals and plants were created.

 Cnidarians, some annelids and some arthropods are considered as the first
multicellular organisms.
 The fish are considered as the first type of vertebrates and amphibians originated from
fish.
 Amphibians can be regarded as the first vertebrates that entered into terrestrial
environment.
 Reptiles evolved as a result of gradual evolutionary changes occured in amphibians. The
reptiles are completely adapted to the terrestrial life

 It is believed that birds and mammals evolved from reptiles during evolution.
 Science- Grade 9-Sussex College- Wennappuwa

The evolution of human took place about 12 million years ago. Modern human
originated about 5 million (5 000 000) years ago.

 The flora ( plants ) was created by the photosynthetic algae in the oceans.
 Less developed plants were originated first , then non-flowering plants, finally flowering
plants originated

 Accordingly, evolution of life on Earth, It has occurred at different times with several
changes. In order to understand that process, study the figure 9.3.

 Various changes in the natural environment can have an impact on the existence of
life. Early simple living organisms on the Earth have changed over time to became
complex organisms.

Gradual development from simple organism to modern complex organism is

called evolution.

There are various evidence are considered about evolution.

 Evidences from geographical animal distribution (biogeography)

 Evidences from comparative anatomy
 Evidences from fossil study (paleontology)

Fossils
A fossil is the preserved remains of an organism, a part of an organism or traces or trace (foot
prints, prints on shells) of a dead organism which are found in rocks, ice, peat bogs, volcanic
ash and in mud.
Fossil records show detailed evidences about the changes in living organisms with a long period
of time on Earth when we found these reserved plant and animal parts during various
excavations.
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How fossils are formed

Animals and plants were buried under mud or sand, or buried live due to different natural
disaster like earthquake or volcanic larva. The soft part of the body get decayed but the harder
part of an animal such as skeleton, teeth or shells decays slowly.

As the part of a bone gets slowly decomposed, sludge mud seeps into the pores
of the bone. Then, the bone is subjected to a high pressure and turns into a bony
rock. This bony rock can be considered as a fossil.

Some of the dead animals get deposited in the mud. Later the animal get decayed and the
decayed matter is removed as gas. The resulting cavity (due to the absence of the dead animal)
gets filled with materials such as Silica (sand). This fossil has the same shape of the original
skeleton.

The external skeleton of some insects are preserved in tree resins and are fossilized.

The preserved bodies of extinct animals such as mammoth are found within ice in the countries
of polar region.

The footprints of animals such as dinosaurs are preserved due to extreme

Environmental( without disturbed by nature) conditions are also considered fossils.

Living fossils

Generally in evolutionary process, there must be continuous changes in the bodies

of the living organisms.

The organisms survive even today retaining their physical characteristics unchanged
though million years have passed and these non-evolved organisms are called living
fossils.

 A fish named Coelacanth was discovered in the sea near South Africa in 1938,
which was believed to be extinct about 70 million years ago. The physical
characteristics of this fish was found to be similar the fish found million years ago.
So, that Coelacanth fish is considered as a living fossil.

 Lingula which is found around the "Thambalagamuwa" bay in Trincomalee is also

called a living fossil.

 The dragon fly, cockroach and lungfish are also considered as living fossils.

 The "Ginihota" (Tree fern) is also considered as a living fossil.

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Bio evolution evidence

The rocks have formed in different stages on the Earth, were arranged in layers. These
layers contain the fossils of plants and animals.

The deposited rocks at the bottom are older and if fossils can be seen there , they
belong to the early stages of Earth.

The rocks are deposited on top of each other, if fossils can be seen there, they belong
to the recent eras.

The study of fossils in the rock layers reveals about the plants and animals that lived
in different periods of the Earth. It gives an idea about bio evolution

Examples for bio evolution

Evolution of horse

Scientists collect the fossil information to explain the evolution of plants and animals.
But coming to conclusions about evolution of organisms using proof from fossils leads
to a number of problems because all the stages of the evolution of an organisms is not
preserved in fossil forms. Sometimes some parts of the fossils are missed or soft bodied
organisms completely decayed.
Therefore, fossil evidences are like a story book with torn pages.

Evolutionary history of horses have been completely studied and revealed clearly
 Science- Grade 9-Sussex College- Wennappuwa

as there have been enough fossil records to study the complete evolutionary history
of horse.

 It is believed that the ancestor ( extreme left ) of modern horse had lived in North
America 54 million (54 x 106) years ago. Further it has been revealed this
animal was about 40 cm in height and was similar to a dog in the body
shape. It could run. It had small legs with only three toes in the front legs.
The significant feature about this animal is that the fingers in front legs
were located on vertical position.

A lot of changes in this animal took place gradually during its evolutionary process.
Some gradual changes took place in locomotion and feeding system.

Importance of evolution in bio-diversity

There is a competition among animals for the limited resources ( food, space, predators, mates
)in the environment.

The organisms( plant or animals) who succeed, will be naturally selected and be established in
the environment.

These selected organisms( survivals ) become pioneers in the environment and their
population increases.

These creatures have created a large bio-diversity (Biodiversity refers to the variety of species
found in an ecosystem.) in the natural environment.

In the process of evolution there may also be novel species that have evolved from former
species. This is known as speciation.

Through this process of speciation the bio-diversity has been increased further.
 Science- Grade 9-Sussex College- Wennappuwa

Reinforcement

1. Answer the end of chapter exercise.

2. Do the activity 9.1 to create a model fossil
3.