The+Art+of+Phylogeny


 * = **How are all living** **things realated?** ||= What makes us so close to other creatures? ======== ||= What benifits can knowing the relations of living things help us out in the future? ||

**Phylogenetic Tree**



A **phylogenetic tree** is just a big word for a diagram, sometimes in the shape of a tree, that shows the evolutionary relationships among different species. The webbing is based on differences in there genetic and physical characteristics.

Describe Your Topic: This is what I would like to explore for my project. I'd like to better understand and see the connections of different species. I hope to relate one creature to another. I will be making my own phylogenetic tree.

**What we think we know:**- Fossils can play a big role in discovering similarities **What we would like to know:**-which creature is closest to the human -how we can use this to our benefit -what are the deciding factors that tells what is connected

**Taxonomy** is the method of calssifying animals and plants by clustering them together into different catagories according to the things they have in common. A **phylogenetic tree** is a certain type of cladogram, a diagram used that shows ancestral relations among organisms, where the branch lengths are proportional to the predicted evolution time between organisms.

**Charles Darwin**

In 1837, Darwin drew in his notebook the words "I think" over his first evolutionary tree. This was done to illustrate the idea he had that all of today's species rose from one common ancestor. The tree illustrated that he believed over time different species should show a series of slight change from simple to complex.

**Ardipithecus**

This is a picture of Ardi above. I found out about this creature while studying the relationship between fossils and finding out common ancestors. Fossils can be an important things for scientist to look at, they reveal a lot about age. In 1994 a unusually well preserved fossil of a female primate was found. This finding was set at about 4.4 million years old. After looking at the remains of Ardi, they realized that this creature was much more closely related to humans than chimps are. We have a very common pelvis, teeth, and feet. The big toe of Ardi reveals that this <span style="display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; text-align: center;">creature could both climb and walk up-straight! []

=<span style="font-family: Impact,Charcoal,sans-serif;">**Driving Question:** = How can making a phylogeny tree help us better understand humans?

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Tree: = = DNA: COMPARING HUMANS & CHIMPS

The bonobo, and the chimpanzee are humans' closest living relatives. The three species are similar in many ways, both with their behavior and their body types. Scientists compare their DNA, and found that humans and chimps share 98.8 percent of their DNA. **SO MUCH ALIKE...** Humans and chimps DNA is so closely related because both species are very closely related. The three species i mentioned earlier, all desceneded from a single ancestor species that lived six or seven million years ago. Their DNA was passed from generation to generation and changed a bit. These changes led to the different apperance and behavior of chimps and humans.

<span style="color: #5f4120; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**SEEING RED**

<span style="color: #5f4120; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Most genes in humans and chimps are nearly identical. Both species have the OPN1LW gene, which allows them both to see the color red. But mice lack OPN1LW, and have trouble seeing red.

<span style="color: #5f4120; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**...AND YET SO DIFFERENT**

<span style="color: #5f4120; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Why are we so different? Numbers tell part of the story. Each human cell contains roughly three billion base pairs, or bits of information. Just 1.2 percent of that equals about 35 million differences. Some of these have a big impact, others don't. And even two identical stretches of DNA can work differently— they can be "turned on" in different amounts, in different places or at different times.

<span style="color: #5f4120; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**SAME GENES, BEHAVING DIFFERENTLY**

<span style="color: #5f4120; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Although humans and chimps have many identical genes, they often use them in different ways. A gene's activity, or expression, can be turned up or down. This means the same gene can be turned up high in humans, but very low in chimps. The same genes are expressed in the same brain regions in human, chimp and gorilla, but in different amounts. Thousands of differences like these affect brain development and function, and help explain why the human brain is larger and smarter.

<span style="color: #5f4120; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">**Slightly different genes**

<span style="color: #5f4120; font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The chimpanzee immune system is surprisingly similar to ours— most viruses that cause diseases like AIDS and hepatitis can infect chimpanzees too. But chimps don't get infected by the malaria parasite //Plasmodium falciparum//, which a mosquito can transmit through its bite into human blood. A small DNA difference makes human red blood cells vulnerable to this parasite, while chimp blood cells are resistant.

Homo Sapiens Age-100,000 years- present

Homo habilis Age-1.9-1.8 million years Range-East Africa

Ardipithecus ramidus Age-4.4 million years Diet-Fruits and leaves

Homo erectus Age-1.8 million years- 300,000 years