The Origins of Life

A History
of
Geologic
Time

22.1
 A History
of
Geologic
Time

22.1
 The Origin of Life ~
A Four Step Hypothesis

• The early atmosphere

– Made of N2 and CO2
– Near volcanic vents there
was methane and ammonia
(reducing conditions)

22.2
 • Laboratory experiments simulating the
atmosphere around volcanic vents
have produced organic molecules from
inorganic precursors
EXPERIMENT Miller and Urey set up a closed system in their
CH4 Electrode
laboratory to simulate conditions thought to have existed on early Water vapor
Earth. A warmed flask of water simulated the primeval sea. The
strongly reducing “atmosphere” in the system consisted of H2, NH
methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), and water vapor. Sparks were 3 H2

discharged in the synthetic atmosphere to mimic lightning. A

Condenser
condenser cooled the atmosphere, raining water and any dissolved
compounds into the miniature sea.
Cold
RESULTS As material circulated through the apparatus, water
Miller and Urey periodically collected samples for analysis. They
identified a variety of organic molecules, including amino acids such
as alanine and glutamic acid that are common in the proteins of
organisms. They also found many other amino acids and complex, Cooled water
oily hydrocarbons. containing
organic
H2O molecules
CONCLUSION Organic molecules, a first step in the origin of Sample for
life, can form in a strongly reducing atmosphere. chemical analysis
 Extraterrestrial Sources of
Organic Compounds
• Some of the organic compounds from which
the first life on Earth arose
– May have come from space
• Carbon compounds
– Have been found in some of the meteorites
that have landed on Earth
 Step #1 - Small organic molecules
(monomers) were produced
(somehow)

22.2
 Step #2 - Synthesis of Polymers

• Small organic molecules

– Polymerize when they are concentrated
on hot sand, clay, or rock
– This resulted in polymers such as
peptides and RNA

22.2
 Step #3 – Synthesis of
Protobionts
• Laboratory experiments demonstrate that
protobionts
– Could have formed spontaneously from
abiotically produced organic compounds
• For example, small membrane-bounded
droplets called liposomes
– Can form when lipids or other organic
molecules are added to water

22.2
 Liposome Formation
Glucose-phosphate
20 µm

Glucose-phosphate
Phosphorylase

Starch
Amylase
Phosphate
Maltose

(a) Simple reproduction. This lipo-
some is “giving birth” to smaller
liposomes (LM).
Maltose
(b) Simple metabolism. If enzymes—in this case,
phosphorylase and amylase—are included in the
solution from which the droplets self-assemble,
some liposomes can carry out simple metabolic
reactions and export the products.

22.2
 Step # 4 – Synthesis of RNA
(heritable material)
• RNA molecules called
ribozymes have been Ribozyme
found to catalyze many 3′
(RNA molecule)

different reactions, Template

including
– Self-splicing
– Making complementary
copies of short stretches
of their own sequence or
Nucleotides
other short pieces of
RNA
5′ 5′
Complementary RNA copy

22.3
How do you prove it?
 Mass Extinctions
• The fossil record Millions of years ago
600 500 400 300 200 100 0

chronicles a number 100 2,500

Number of

of occasions 80
Extinction rate
taxonomic
Permian mass families
extinction
2,000

– When global

Number of families (
Extinction rate (
60 1,500
environmental changes
were so rapid and 40 1,000
Cretaceous
disruptive that a majority mass extinction

)
of species were swept 20 500

away
0 0

Carboniferous
Proterozoic eon

Neogene
Cretaceous
Ordovician

Paleogene
Cambrian

Devonian

Jurassic
Permian
Silurian

Triassic
Ceno-
Paleozoic Mesozoic
zoic

22.4
 Permian and the Cretaceous
Mass Extinctions

• The Permian extinction

– Claimed about 96% of marine animal species
and 8 out of 27 orders of insects
– Is thought to have been caused by enormous
volcanic eruptions

22.4
 • The Cretaceous extinction
– Doomed many marine and terrestrial
organisms, most notably the dinosaurs
– Is thought to have been caused by the
impact of a large meteor

NORTH
AMERICA

Chicxulub
crater
Yucatán
Peninsula

22.4
 Prokaryotes Emerged 3.5 BYA

Lynn Margulis (top right), of the University of Massachussetts, and

Kenneth Nealson, of the University of Southern California, are
shown collecting bacterial mats in a Baja California lagoon. The
mats are produced by colonies of bacteria that live in environments
inhospitable to most other life. A section through a mat (inset)
shows layers of sediment that adhere to the sticky bacteria.

Some bacterial mats form rocklike structures called stromatolites,

such as these in Shark Bay, Western Australia. The Shark Bay
stromatolites began forming about 3,000 years ago. The inset
shows a section through a fossilized stromatolite that is about
3.5 billion years old.

22.5
 Oxygenic photosynthesis
– Probably evolved about 3.5 billion years
ago in cyanobacteria

Iron oxide sediments in 3 bya rock

22.5
• When oxygen began to accumulate in the
atmosphere about 2.7 billion years ago
– It provided an opportunity to gain abundant
energy from light
– It provided organisms an opportunity to exploit
new ecosystems

22.5
 The First Eukaryotes

• The oldest fossils of eukaryotic cells

– Date back 2.1 billion years

22.6
 Cytoplasm
DNA
Plasma
membrane
Ancestral
prokaryote

1. plasma Infolding
membrane
of

The Evolution of Endoplasmic Nucleus

reticulum
Nuclear envelope
Eukaryotes – Engulfing
of aerobic
2.
heterotrophic
prokaryote Cell with nucleus
and endomembrane
system

Endosymbiosis Mitochondrion
Mitochondrion

3. Engulfing of
photosynthetic
prokaryote in
Ancestral some cells
heterotrophic
eukaryote Plastid
3.
Ancestral
Photosynthetic
22.6 eukaryote
 Eukaryotes became multicellular
1.5 bya

• Formed colonies -
collections of
autonomously
replicating cells
• Some cells in the
colonies became
specialized for
different functions
10 µm

22.6
 The “Cambrian Explosion”

• Most of the major phyla of animals

– Appear suddenly in the fossil record that
was laid down during the first 20 million
years of the Cambrian period (540 mya)
 Proteobacteria

Chlamydias

Spirochetes

Cyanobacteria

Domain Bacteria
Chapter 27

Gram-positive bacteria

Korarchaeotes

Euryarchaeotes, crenarchaeotes, nanoarchaeotes

Domain Archaea
Diplomonads, parabasalids

Universal ancestor
Euglenozoans

Alveolates (dinoflagellates, apicomplexans, ciliates)

Stramenopiles (water molds, diatoms, golden/brown algae)

Chapter 28

Cercozoans, radiolarians

Red algae
Domain Eukarya

Chlorophytes

Charophyceans
One current view of biological diversity
 Bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, hornworts)
Chapter 29

Seedless vascular plants (ferns)

Plants
Gymnosperms

Angiosperms

Amoebozoans (amoebas, slime molds)

Chapter 30 Chapter 28

Chytrids

Zygote fungi

Fungi
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
Chapter 31
Continued

Sac fungi

Club fungi

Choanoflagellates

Sponges

Cnidarians (jellies, coral)

Animals
Chapter 32 Chapters 33, 34

Bilaterally symmetrical animals (annelids,

arthropods, molluscs, echinoderms, vertebrates)