The Early Evolution of Life

Most of life's history involved the biochemical evolution of single-celled

microorganisms. We find individual fossilized microbes in rocks 3.5 billion years old, yet
we can conclusively identify multicelled fossils only in rocks younger than billion
years. !he oldest microbial communities often constructed layered mound-sha"ed
de"osits called stromatolites, whose structures suggest that those organisms sought light
and were therefore "hotosynthetic. !hese early stromatolites grew along ancient
seacoasts and endured harsh sunlight as well as e"isodic wetting and drying by tides.
!hus it a""ears that, even as early as 3.5 billion years ago, microorganisms had become
remarkably durable and so"histicated#
Many im"ortant events mark the interval between and 3 billion years ago. $s the
illustration shows, smaller volcanic terrains were %oined by larger, more stable granitic
continents. &ife learned how to release o'ygen from water, and it "o"ulated the newly

e'"anded continental shelf regions. !he illustration de"icts these events, both in the
abundant mound-sha"ed stromatolites along the shoreline and in the greater variety of
filamentous and s"herical microbes in the foreground. (inally, between and ) billion
years ago, the eukaryotic cells with their com"le' system of organells and membranes
develo"ed *note the euglena in the illustration+ and began to e'"eriment with multicelled
body structures. !he illustration shows a "rimitive %ellyfish and two ,diacarian -sea
"ens.-
Evolutionary history of life
.n biology, evolution is a change in the inherited traits of a "o"ulation from one
generation to the ne't. !his "rocess causes organisms to change over time. .nherited traits
are the e'"ression of genes that are "assed on to offs"ring during re"roduction. Mutations
in genes can "roduce new or altered traits, resulting in the a""earance of heritable
differences between organisms. /uch new traits also come from the transfer of genes
between "o"ulations, as in migration, or between s"ecies, in horizontal gene transfer.
,volution occurs when these heritable differences become more common or rare in a
"o"ulation, either non-randomly through natural selection or randomly through genetic
drift.
0atural selection is a "rocess by which heritable traits that are hel"ful for survival and
re"roduction become more common in a "o"ulation, while harmful traits become more
rare. !his occurs because individuals with advantageous traits re"roduce more
successfully, so that more in the ne't generation inherit these traits.
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3ver many
generations, ada"tations occur through a combination of successive, small, random
changes in traits, and natural selection of those variants best-suited for their environment.
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.n contrast, genetic drift "roduces random changes in the fre4uency of traits in a
"o"ulation. 5enetic drift arises from the role chance "lays in whether a given individual
will survive and re"roduce.
3ne definition of a s"ecies is a grou" of organisms that can re"roduce with one another
and "roduce fertile offs"ring. 6owever, when a s"ecies is se"arated into "o"ulations that
are "revented from interbreeding, mutations, genetic drift, and the selection of novel
traits cause the accumulation of differences over generations and the emergence of new
s"ecies.
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!he similarities between organisms suggest that all known s"ecies are
descended from a common ancestor *or ancestral gene "ool+ through this "rocess of
gradual divergence.
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/tudies of the fossil record and the diversity of living organisms had convinced most
scientists by the mid-nineteenth century that s"ecies changed over time.
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6owever, the
mechanism driving these changes remained unclear until the 95: "ublication of ;harles
<arwin's On the Origin of Species, detailing the theory of evolution by natural selection.
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<arwin's work soon led to overwhelming acce"tance of evolution within the scientific
community.
1921:21>212
.n the :3>s, <arwinian natural selection was combined with
Mendelian inheritance to form the modern evolutionary synthesis,
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in which the
connection between the units of evolution *genes+ and the mechanism of evolution
)
*natural selection+ was made. !his "owerful e'"lanatory and "redictive theory has
become the central organizing "rinci"le of modern biology, "roviding a unifying
e'"lanation for the diversity of life on ,arth.
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Evolution of Advanced Life
!he evolution of the "lants and animals most familiar to us occurred only in the last 55>
million years. !he illustration de"icts the a""earance of marine invertebrates *such as
shell-making ammonites+, then fish, am"hibians, re"tiles, mammals, and humanity. !he
life thread which continues on in the oceans to the right reminds us that the evolution of
a4uatic life continues even today. !he develo"ment of land "lant communities is also
de"icted, showing he relatively ancient clubmosses, horsetails, and ferns, and the more
recent gymnos"erms *for e'am"le, conifers+ and angios"erms *flowering "lants+.
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?erha"s the most recent significant evolutionary innovation has been humanity's ability to
record and build u"on its e'"erience, thus triggering the rise of civilization and
technology. !hese develo"ments bring us to the "resent, and, as the thread of life reaches
the summit of a tree-covered hill, we "onder our future.
Origin of life
For more details on this topic, see Abiogenesis and RNA world hypothesis.
!he origin of life is a necessary "recursor for biological evolution, but understanding that
evolution occurred once organisms a""eared and investigating how this ha""ens, does
not de"end on understanding e'actly how life began.
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!he current scientific consensus
is that the com"le' biochemistry that makes u" life came from sim"ler chemical
reactions, but it is unclear how this occurred.
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0ot much is certain about the earliest
develo"ments in life, the structure of the first living things, or the identity and nature of
any last universal common ancestor or ancestral gene "ool.
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;onse4uently, there is
no scientific consensus on how life began, but "ro"osals include self-re"licating
molecules such as @0$,
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and the assembly of sim"le cells.
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Common descent
!he hominoids are descendants of a common ancestor.
$ll organisms on ,arth are descended from a common ancestor or ancestral gene "ool.
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;urrent s"ecies are a stage in the "rocess of evolution, with their diversity the "roduct of
a long series of s"eciation and e'tinction events.
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!he common descent of organisms
was first deduced from four sim"le facts about organismsA (irst, they have geogra"hic
distributions that cannot be e'"lained by local ada"tation. /econd, the diversity of life is
not a set of com"letely uni4ue organisms, but organisms that share mor"hological
similarities. !hird, vestigial traits with no clear "ur"ose resemble functional ancestral
traits, and finally, that organisms can be classified using these similarities into a hierarchy
of nested grou"s.
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?ast s"ecies have also left records of their evolutionary history. (ossils, along with the
com"arative anatomy of "resent-day organisms, constitute the mor"hological, or
anatomical, record.
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By com"aring the anatomies of both modern and e'tinct s"ecies,
"aleontologists can infer the lineages of those s"ecies. 6owever, this a""roach is most
successful for organisms that had hard body "arts, such as shells, bones or teeth. (urther,
as "rokaryotes such as bacteria and archaea share a limited set of common mor"hologies,
their fossils do not "rovide information on their ancestry.
More recently, evidence for common descent has come from the study of biochemical
similarities between organisms. (or e'am"le, all living cells use the same nucleic acids
and amino acids.
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!he develo"ment of molecular genetics has revealed the record of
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evolution left in organisms' genomesA dating when s"ecies diverged through the
molecular clock "roduced by mutations.
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(or e'am"le, these <0$ se4uence
com"arisons have revealed the close genetic similarity between humans and chim"anzees
and shed light on when the common ancestor of these s"ecies e'isted.
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Evolution of life
For more details on this topic, see Timeline of evolution.
,volutionary tree showing the divergence of modern s"ecies from their common ancestor
in the center.
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!he three domains are colored, with bacteria blue, archaea green, and
eukaryotes red.
<es"ite the uncertainty on how life began, it is clear that "rokaryotes were the first
organisms to inhabit ,arth,
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a""ro'imately 3C7 billion years ago.
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0o obvious
changes in mor"hology or cellular organization occurred in these organisms over the ne't
few billion years.
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!he eukaryotes were the ne't ma%or innovation in evolution. !hese came from ancient
bacteria being engulfed by the ancestors of eukaryotic cells, in a coo"erative association
called endosymbiosis.
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!he engulfed bacteria and the host cell then underwent co-
evolution, with the bacteria evolving into either mitochondria or hydrogenosomes.
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$n
inde"endent second engulfment of cyanobacterial-like organisms led to the formation of
chloro"lasts in algae and "lants.
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!he history of life was that of the unicellular eukaryotes, "rokaryotes, and archaea until
about a billion years ago when multicellular organisms began to a""ear in the oceans in
the ,diacaran "eriod.
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!he evolution of multicellularity occurred in multi"le
inde"endent events, in organisms as diverse as s"onges, brown algae, cyanobacteria,
slime moulds and my'obacteria.
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/oon after the emergence of these first multicellular organisms, a remarkable amount of
biological diversity a""eared over a""ro'imately > million years, in an event called the
;ambrian e'"losion. 6ere, the ma%ority of ty"es of modern animals evolved, as well as
uni4ue lineages that subse4uently became e'tinct.
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Darious triggers for the ;ambrian
e'"losion have been "ro"osed, including the accumulation of o'ygen in the atmos"here
from "hotosynthesis.
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$bout 5>> million years ago, "lants and fungi colonized the
land, and were soon followed by arthro"ods and other animals.
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$m"hibians first
a""eared around 3>> million years ago, followed by early amniotes, then mammals
around )>> million years ago and birds around >> million years ago *both from
-re"tile--like lineages+. 6owever, des"ite the evolution of these large animals, smaller
organisms similar to the ty"es that evolved early in this "rocess continue to be highly
successful and dominate the ,arth, with the ma%ority of both biomass and s"ecies being
"rokaryotes.
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The Future
5iven the huge number of stars known to e'ist in the universe, life has very likely also
develo"ed elsewhere. .f this -other- life can control and transmit energy such as light and
radio waves, we %ust might be able to detect it.
$s 0$/$ develo"s its mission to build a s"ace station and to visit other solar system
bodies such as comets, "lanets, and moons, it res"onds to humanity's need to return to the
cosmos, both to understand life's origins as well as to e'"and its horizons.
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