Carolus Linnaeus

Taxonomy: the ordering of the natural world

Question: How did relationships come to exist?

Catastrophism(the only explanation for change)

• The world began perfect• Change explained through major disasters

(Catastrophies) on a scale not seen today.• Examples: Noah’s flood

Thomas Malthus

Economist, concerned with Overpopulation in Europe’s cities

Law of Biotic PotentialOrginisms will maximize their production of offspring. More willbe born than can survive

What determines which will survive???

Inheritance ofacquired characteristics

Darwin’s Finches

• Adaptation

• Environmentplays a rolein shaping aspecies

Natural Selection(Darwin and Wallace)

Requirements:1. variation within a species2. more offspring produced than needed to assure continuance of the species3. environmental factors that favor one variation over another

Mendelian Genetics• Austrian priest

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) carried out an extensive series of experiments in plant breeding.

• His carefully tabulated results provided the basis of what we know about the mechanisms of genetic inheritance.

Mendelian Genetics

Figure 2.8:

The seven phenotypic characteristics investigated by Gregor Mendel in his experiments on breeding in pea plants. Each of the seven traits has two distinct phenotypes.