Transcript Evolutionary Trees

What information do they give us?
 Discuss with someone next to you.
 Make a Simple sketch on your whiteboard.
Darwin’s early notes
From On the Origin of Species
Trees by Ernst Haeckel
A Evolutionary
Tree showing the
relationships
between
organisms with
fully sequenced
genomes.
The tips of branches
represent a species or group
of species.
When branches meet, this represents
the most recent common ancestor
between the two groups of species.
Youngest
This higher
branching
happened later
This branching of the ancestral
lineage happened first.
Branching that occurs lower
in the tree happened further
in the past.
Oldest
1. Which organism is the Hippo most closely related to?
Answer on your white board and wait for my signal to hold it up!
D
F
A
E
C
B
1. Where is the most recent common ancestor for the Hippo and Pig?
Answer on your white board and wait for my signal to hold it up!
D
F
A
E
C
B
2. What are all the descendants of the common ancestor at C?
Answer on your white board and wait for my signal to hold it up!
D
F
A
E
C
B
3. Which common ancestor(s) is/are the oldest?
Answer on your white board and wait for my signal to hold it up!
D
F
A
E
C
B
4. Which common ancestor(s) is/are the youngest?
Answer on your white board and wait for my signal to hold it up!
Discuss with someone near you
and see if you can come up
with a simple evolutionary tree
between these organisms on
your whiteboard.
Organisms
# of Amino Acid
differences
Human and
chimpanzee
0
Hint: more differences in Amino
Acids means that the common
ancestor is older!
Human and gorilla
1
Human and rhesus
monkey
2
Human and Horse
5
Human and
Kangaroo
7
Human
Chimpanzee
Gorilla
Rhesus
Monkey
Horse
Kangaroo
Start with Humans
since they are what
we are comparing to.
Then add branches starting with the
organisms with the fewest differences at
the top of the tree.
Finally finish with the
Kangaroo since it has the
most differences from a
human!