The History of Life

1. The History of Life Section 17–2 This section explains how Earth formed. It also outlines hypotheses that have been proposed for how life first arose on Earth and describes some of the main steps in the early evolution of life.

2. Formation of Earth List six components of Earth’s early atmosphere. • Hydrogen • Cyanide • Carbon monoxide • Hydrogen sulfide • Carbon dioxide • Nitrogen • Water

3. Formation of Earth • Is the following sentence true or false? Liquid water first occurred on Earth more than 4 billion years ago. • FALSE

4. The First Organic Molecules • Label the diagram to show which part of Miller and Urey’s

5. The First Organic Molecules • Circle the letter of each sentence that is true about Miller and Urey’s experiments. • Their purpose was to determine how the first organic molecules evolved. • They led to the formation of several amino acids.

6. The First Organic Molecules • What are proteinoid Microspheres? • They are tiny bubbles, formed of large organic molecules, that have some characteristics of living cells.

7. The First Organic Molecules Is the following sentence true or false? Scientists know how DNA and RNA evolved. • false

8. The First Organic Molecules • Why do scientists think that RNA may have evolved before DNA? • Experiments showthat small sequences of RNA could have formed and replicated on their own in the conditionspresent on early Earth.

9. The First Organic Molecules • Once DNA evolved, why would it have become the primary means of transmitting genetic information? • DNA is a more stable information-storing molecule than RNA.

10. The First Organic Molecules • Microscopic fossils are called. • Microfossils

11. Free Oxygen • Circle the letter of each sentence that is true about the earliest life forms on Earth. • They resembled modern bacteria.

12. Free Oxygen • How did early photosynthetic bacteria change Earth? • They produced oxygen, which firstremoved iron from the oceans and then accumulated in the atmosphere.

13. Free Oxygen • Is the following sentence true or false? The rise of oxygen in the atmosphere drove some life forms to extinction. TRUE

14. Origin of Eukaryotic Cells Is the following sentence true or false? The ancestor of all eukaryotic cells evolved about 2 billion years ago. • true

15. Origin of Eukaryotic Cells What was the first step in the evolution of eukaryotic cells? • The first step wasevolution of internal cell membranes.

16. Origin of Eukaryotic Cells What does the endosymbiotic theory propose? • It proposes that eukaryotic cells arose from living communities formed by several organisms.

17. The History of Life Circle the letter of each choice that provides support for the endosymbiotic theory. • The membranes of mitochondria and chloroplasts resemble the plasma membranes of free-living prokaryotes. • Mitochondria and chloroplasts have ribosomes that are similar in size and structure to those of bacteria. • Mitochondria and chloroplasts reproduce by binary fission as bacteria do.

18. Sexual Reproduction and Multicellularity How did sexual reproduction speed up the evolutionary process? • Sexual reproductionshuffles and reshuffles genes in each generation. This increase in genetic variation greatly increases the chances of evolutionary change due to natural selection.

19. Sexual Reproduction and Multicellularity • Is the following sentence true or false? • Sexual reproduction evolved after the first multicellular organisms appeared. • FALSE