1. Why is it desirable to have a hierarchical system of biologic classification? What communication problems might result from simply referring to life forms as “kinds” or by colloquial names? How does a hierarchical organization of species promote advances in medicine, agriculture, genetics, and other sciences?
2. The limits of living species of organisms can be defined through a reproductive criterion, but this technique cannot be applied to ancient species. What types of proxy evidence could be used to identify living species? What techniques of identification would be most useful for ancient species?
3. The fossil record consists largely of the hard, biomineralized parts or lignin-impregnated parts of organisms. If you were to design an experiment to test the reasons for this, how would you do it? Is there someplace you could go to watch taphonomic processes in action that might lead to the outcome shown in the fossil record?
4. The organisms that bear hard parts comprise a small
Percentage of the life forms on Earth. How do you think this influences our perception of the history of life on Earth? If you wanted to fill in the details about life forms that do not normally fossilize, how would you do it?
What is happening in these pictures?
Carcasses of organisms can be transported by air or water currents, whereas footprints and other traces of activity left in unconsolidated sediment cannot be transported because _ J they become destroyed by current action.
¦ Are body fossils or trace fossils more likely to faithfully record the presence of an organism at a particular site during the geologic past?
¦ Do you think most bodily remains are normally transported far from where the organisms actually lived?
¦ How might you be able to determine from fossil evidence whether a body was transported before being buried and fossilized?
Under what
Circumstances might you expect bodily remains to have been transported? What clues would you look for in strata to indicate possible transport?
World History
