Adaptive Radiation:
1. Lake Tanganyika is found central Eastern Africa on the borders of the DRC, Burundi, Zambia and Tanzania. It is the seventh largest freshwater lake in the world with a very little temperaure variation. Below 300 feet there is no oxygen which means that all the fish in the lake are fond in the upper layers of the lake. The lake is a vast expanse of freshwater that plays host to a massive ecosystem as it has elements that can support many different forms of life.
2. Adaptive radiation is the process where organisms adapt to their environments in order to stand a better chance of survival. The diversification of a species in evolutionary terms ….organisms diversify rapidly into a multitude of new forms in response to evironmental niches. The cichlid fish in Lake Tanganyika are a prime example of adaptive radiation as they have evolved parts of their
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Biotopes - This is an area of the same environmental conditions which serves as a habitat for specific fauna and flora.
Fauna – These are the animals of a particular geographical region.
Niche - The status of an organism within its environment and community (affecting its survival as a species) Ecological niche describes the way of life of a species or population within separate unique niches.
Species – These are populations of organisms with common characteristics that are able to interbeed.
Endemic - Species that are in an ecological state of being unique to a defined geographical location such as an island, nation,defined zone or habitat
Tigriopus californicus is an amazing little marine crustacean that is classified as a Harpactacoid copepod. Harpactacoid meaning it’s class, and copepod meaning its order.
Biological evolution is a change in the characteristics of living organisms over generations (Scott, 2017). A basic mechanism of evolution, the genetic drift, and mutation is natural selection. According to Darwin's theory of evolution, natural selection is a process in nature in which only the organisms best adapted to their environmental surroundings have a higher chance of surviving and transmitting their genetic characters in increasing numbers to succeeding generations while those less adapted tend to be eliminated. There has been many experimental research projects that relate to the topic of natural selection and evolution.
Phylon 49.3/4 (2001): 173. Academic Search Premier -. Web. The Web. The Web. 20 Mar. 2014.
Although this sounds a lot like Darwin’s theory, it is quite different as Darwin did not believe in active adaptation but he did believe in random mutations and selection. He believed that the species develop at random but whichever species becomes most adapted to its environment will then survive and take over the entire population.
The concept of transitional species is an important and complex notion in evolutionary biology. To begin with, there is no such thing as transitional species since all living things were always evolving in the past, not stopping at one stage or another, and they will continue to evolve in the future. In terms of evolutionary biology, we use the concept of transitional species as a way to dim ambiguity. Much like the use of the Linnean taxonomic system of species, we come up with concepts like transitional species to organize and classify species in order to understand their evolutionary roots and how those species changed through life’s history to become what they are today. “In the same way that the concept of species can be provisionally meaningful to describe organisms at a single point in time, the concept of transitional species can be provisionally meaningful to describe organisms over a length of time, usually quite a long time, such as hundreds of thousands or millions of years” (111). Though it can be difficult to distinguish what can be considered an ancestral species from another, the fossil record can show us how species change through time as they develop ways to adapt to stresses found in their environments. “In the modern sense, organisms or fossils that show intermediate stages between ancestral and that of the current state are referred to as transitional species” (222). The concept of transitional species is, in essence, fairly straight forward. This paper will outline the concept of transitional (or sometimes termed intermediate) species and the latter’s role in evolutionary biology, as well as go in depth about several common transitional species: Tiktaalik, an animal at the cusp between life in the water and ...
At an elevation of over 4,500 feet, Rwanda’s Lake Kivu remains as the highest lake in Africa. Rwanda’s highest point isn’t Lake Kivu though. Volcano Karisimbi continues to obtain the record of Rwanda’s highest point at over 14,000 feet above sea level. Although the equator lies about two degrees north of Rwanda, Rwanda’s temperature stays approximately 70-75 degrees because of the elevation. Rwanda has two rainy seasons where heavy rain can happen and ...
middle of paper ... ... that occurs is only that which allows for a species to adapt to its present circumstances. As the examples given here illustrate, natural selection may take on many forms and give a species better defensive, offensive, or reproductive measures in the struggle for existence, which, though it sounds dramatic and urgent, is nothing more than being able to effectively cope with the external world and reproduce. Works Cited Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species.
The Nile is the longest river in the world, cuts a swath of green and life through the bareness of the giant Sahara desert in northern Africa. It is almost 4160 miles long from its remotest head stream, the Lavironza river in Burundi, in central Africa to its delta on the Mediterranean sea north east of Egypt. The river flows northward and drain 1100100 square miles, about tenth the size of Africa, passing through ten African countries. It has many tributaries but there are two main ones: the White Nile fed by lake Victoria and the Blue Nile coming from Ethiopian mountains. These two main branches join near Khartoum, the capital of Sudan and they continue together as Nile proper until meeting the Mediterranean Sea and forming the Nile delta in northern Egypt.
Works Cited Attoh, Samuel Aryeetey, ed. Geography of Sub-Saharan Africa. 3 rd. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2010. Book.
According to Darwin and his theory on evolution, organisms are presented with nature’s challenge of environmental change. Those that possess the characteristics of adapting to such challenges are successful in leaving their genes behind and ensuring that their lineage will continue. It is natural selection, where nature can perform tiny to mass sporadic experiments on its organisms, and the results can be interesting from extinction to significant changes within a species.
The Nile, is the longest river in the world, and is located in northeastern Africa. Its principal source is Lake Victoria, in east central Africa. The Nile flows north through Uganda, Sudan, and Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea, with a total distance of 5584 km. From its remotest headstream in Burundi, the river is 6671 km long. The river basin covers an area of more than 3,349,000 sq km. Not only is the Nile considered a wonder by Herodotus, but by people all over the world, due to its impotance to the growth of a civilization.The first great African civilization developed in the northern Nile Valley in about 5000 BC.
Extinction, although not as pleasant a concept as the idea of adapting to ones surroundings, plays just as large a role in natural selection as anything else. As one adaptation of a species proves beneficial, and as that variation begins to propagate, the original, less advantageous variant will die off. It is the unchanged species that are in immediate conflict with the species undergoing the natural adaptation that stand to suffer...
The world we live in today is full of an exceptional variety of animals. The time it took to conclude to the various sorts of species seen today has been throughout a period of millions of years. The vast majority of these animals are accredited to evolutionary advancements. When the environment changes, organisms have become accustomed to changing to fit their environment, to ensure their species does not die off. These physical changes have resulted in different phyla, ranging from basic structures, like sponges to advance systems, like that of an octopus.
Studying the evolutionary history and adaption for this species is difficult and an ongoing struggle for scientists. It is classified in the order of Chondrichthyes suborder Elasmobranchii and family of Rhincodontidea. The difficulty in tracing this species evolutionary history stems from the fact that its ancestry dates back 245 million year ago to the Jurassic and Cretaceous