A gonad , sex gland , or reproductive gland is a mixed gland and sex organ that produces the gametes and sex hormones of an organism. Female reproductive cells are egg cells , and male reproductive cells are sperm . The male gonad, the testicle , produces sperm in the form of spermatozoa . The female gonad, the ovary , produces egg cells. Both of these gametes are haploid cells. Some hermaphroditic animals (and some humans — see Ovotesticular syndrome ) have a type of gonad called an ovotestis .
65-445: It is hard to find a common origin for gonads, but gonads most likely evolved independently several times. The gonads are controlled by luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), produced and secreted by gonadotropes or gonadotrophins in the anterior pituitary gland . This secretion is regulated by gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) produced in the hypothalamus . The gonads develop from three sources;
130-444: A Brownian motion model of trait evolution along a phylogeny. More recent methods also quantify the strength of convergence. One drawback to keep in mind is that these methods can confuse long-term stasis with convergence due to phenotypic similarities. Stasis occurs when there is little evolutionary change among taxa. Distance-based measures assess the degree of similarity between lineages over time. Frequency-based measures assess
195-428: A nucleophile . In order to activate that nucleophile, they orient an acidic and a basic residue in a catalytic triad . The chemical and physical constraints on enzyme catalysis have caused identical triad arrangements to evolve independently more than 20 times in different enzyme superfamilies . Threonine proteases use the amino acid threonine as their catalytic nucleophile . Unlike cysteine and serine, threonine
260-575: A high concentration of cerebrosides in the skin of their wings. This improves skin flexibility, a trait useful for flying animals; other mammals have a far lower concentration. The extinct pterosaurs independently evolved wings from their fore- and hindlimbs, while insects have wings that evolved separately from different organs. Flying squirrels and sugar gliders are much alike in their mammalian body plans, with gliding wings stretched between their limbs, but flying squirrels are placentals while sugar gliders are marsupials, widely separated within
325-635: A molecular level to toxins. One well-characterized example is the evolution of resistance to cardiotonic steroids (CTSs) via amino acid substitutions at well-defined positions of the α-subunit of Na ,K -ATPase (ATPalpha). Variation in ATPalpha has been surveyed in various CTS-adapted species spanning six insect orders. Among 21 CTS-adapted species, 58 (76%) of 76 amino acid substitutions at sites implicated in CTS resistance occur in parallel in at least two lineages. 30 of these substitutions (40%) occur at just two sites in
390-568: A phylogenetic reconstruction, and are sometimes explicitly sought by investigators. The methods applied to infer convergent evolution depend on whether pattern-based or process-based convergence is expected. Pattern-based convergence is the broader term, for when two or more lineages independently evolve patterns of similar traits. Process-based convergence is when the convergence is due to similar forces of natural selection . Earlier methods for measuring convergence incorporate ratios of phenotypic and phylogenetic distance by simulating evolution with
455-545: A protective response. The first such plant receptors were identified in rice and in Arabidopsis thaliana . Plants have some of the largest genomes of all organisms. The largest plant genome (in terms of gene number) is that of wheat ( Triticum aestivum ), predicted to encode ≈94,000 genes and thus almost 5 times as many as the human genome . The first plant genome sequenced was that of Arabidopsis thaliana which encodes about 25,500 genes. In terms of sheer DNA sequence,
520-420: A range of physical and biotic stresses which cause DNA damage , but they can tolerate and repair much of this damage. Plants reproduce to generate offspring, whether sexually , involving gametes , or asexually , involving ordinary growth. Many plants use both mechanisms. When reproducing sexually, plants have complex lifecycles involving alternation of generations . One generation, the sporophyte , which
585-501: A steadily decreasing probability of retaining potential functionality over time. The time scale of this process varies greatly in different phylogenies; in mammals and birds, there is a reasonable probability of remaining in the genome in a potentially functional state for around 6 million years. When two species are similar in a particular character, evolution is defined as parallel if the ancestors were also similar, and convergent if they were not. Some scientists have argued that there
650-438: A trait presently identified with at least primates , corvids , and cetaceans . In cladistics, a homoplasy is a trait shared by two or more taxa for any reason other than that they share a common ancestry. Taxa which do share ancestry are part of the same clade ; cladistics seeks to arrange them according to their degree of relatedness to describe their phylogeny . Homoplastic traits caused by convergence are therefore, from
715-404: Is diploid (with 2 sets of chromosomes ), gives rise to the next generation, the gametophyte , which is haploid (with one set of chromosomes). Some plants also reproduce asexually via spores . In some non-flowering plants such as mosses, the sexual gametophyte forms most of the visible plant. In seed plants (gymnosperms and flowering plants), the sporophyte forms most of the visible plant, and
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#1733086023008780-421: Is divergent evolution , where related species evolve different traits. Convergent evolution is similar to parallel evolution , which occurs when two independent species evolve in the same direction and thus independently acquire similar characteristics; for instance, gliding frogs have evolved in parallel from multiple types of tree frog . Many instances of convergent evolution are known in plants , including
845-427: Is a secondary alcohol (i.e. has a methyl group). The methyl group of threonine greatly restricts the possible orientations of triad and substrate, as the methyl clashes with either the enzyme backbone or the histidine base. Consequently, most threonine proteases use an N-terminal threonine in order to avoid such steric clashes . Several evolutionarily independent enzyme superfamilies with different protein folds use
910-443: Is a continuum between parallel and convergent evolution, while others maintain that despite some overlap, there are still important distinctions between the two. When the ancestral forms are unspecified or unknown, or the range of traits considered is not clearly specified, the distinction between parallel and convergent evolution becomes more subjective. For instance, the striking example of similar placental and marsupial forms
975-463: Is a membrane stretched across four extremely elongated fingers and the legs. The airfoil of the bird wing is made of feathers , strongly attached to the forearm (the ulna) and the highly fused bones of the wrist and hand (the carpometacarpus ), with only tiny remnants of two fingers remaining, each anchoring a single feather. So, while the wings of bats and birds are functionally convergent, they are not anatomically convergent. Birds and bats also share
1040-547: Is a similar process. Structures such as runners enable plants to grow to cover an area, forming a clone . Many plants grow food storage structures such as tubers or bulbs which may each develop into a new plant. Some non-flowering plants, such as many liverworts, mosses and some clubmosses, along with a few flowering plants, grow small clumps of cells called gemmae which can detach and grow. Plants use pattern-recognition receptors to recognize pathogens such as bacteria that cause plant diseases. This recognition triggers
1105-666: Is common in the developed world and this delay is often associated with ovarian female infertility and subfertility. Ovarian aging is characterized by progressive decline of the quality and number of oocytes . This decline is likely due, in part, to reduced expression of genes that encode proteins necessary for DNA repair and meiosis . Such reduced expression can lead to increased DNA damage and errors in meiotic recombination . The testes of older men often have sperm abnormalities that can ultimately lead to male infertility . These abnormalities include accumulation of DNA damage and decreased DNA repair ability. During spermatogenesis in
1170-664: Is described by Richard Dawkins in The Blind Watchmaker as a case of convergent evolution, because mammals on each continent had a long evolutionary history prior to the extinction of the dinosaurs under which to accumulate relevant differences. The enzymology of proteases provides some of the clearest examples of convergent evolution. These examples reflect the intrinsic chemical constraints on enzymes, leading evolution to converge on equivalent solutions independently and repeatedly. Serine and cysteine proteases use different amino acid functional groups (alcohol or thiol) as
1235-496: Is known as botany , a branch of biology . All living things were traditionally placed into one of two groups, plants and animals . This classification dates from Aristotle (384–322 BC), who distinguished different levels of beings in his biology , based on whether living things had a "sensitive soul" or like plants only a "vegetative soul". Theophrastus , Aristotle's student, continued his work in plant taxonomy and classification. Much later, Linnaeus (1707–1778) created
1300-542: Is responsible, say with brown dominant to blue eye colour . However, a single locus is responsible for about 80% of the variation. In lemurs, the differences between blue and brown eyes are not completely known, but the same gene locus is not involved. While most plant species are perennial , about 6% follow an annual life cycle, living for only one growing season. The annual life cycle independently emerged in over 120 plant families of angiosperms. The prevalence of annual species increases under hot-dry summer conditions in
1365-409: Is the camera eye of cephalopods (such as squid and octopus), vertebrates (including mammals) and cnidarians (such as jellyfish). Their last common ancestor had at most a simple photoreceptive spot, but a range of processes led to the progressive refinement of camera eyes —with one sharp difference: the cephalopod eye is "wired" in the opposite direction, with blood and nerve vessels entering from
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#17330860230081430-522: The Chenopodiaceae and the Amaranthaceae . Fruits with a wide variety of structural origins have converged to become edible. Apples are pomes with five carpels ; their accessory tissues form the apple's core, surrounded by structures from outside the botanical fruit, the receptacle or hypanthium . Other edible fruits include other plant tissues; the fleshy part of a tomato is the walls of
1495-679: The Cretaceous so rapid that Darwin called it an " abominable mystery ". Conifers diversified from the Late Triassic onwards, and became a dominant part of floras in the Jurassic . In 2019, a phylogeny based on genomes and transcriptomes from 1,153 plant species was proposed. The placing of algal groups is supported by phylogenies based on genomes from the Mesostigmatophyceae and Chlorokybophyceae that have since been sequenced. Both
1560-457: The carpels or ovaries , which develop into fruits that contain seeds . Fruits may be dispersed whole, or they may split open and the seeds dispersed individually. Plants reproduce asexually by growing any of a wide variety of structures capable of growing into new plants. At the simplest, plants such as mosses or liverworts may be broken into pieces, each of which may regrow into whole plants. The propagation of flowering plants by cuttings
1625-618: The eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae ; they are predominantly photosynthetic . This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight , using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars from carbon dioxide and water, using the green pigment chlorophyll . Exceptions are parasitic plants that have lost the genes for chlorophyll and photosynthesis, and obtain their energy from other plants or fungi. Most plants are multicellular , except for some green algae. Historically, as in Aristotle's biology ,
1690-619: The pericarp . This implies convergent evolution under selective pressure, in this case the competition for seed dispersal by animals through consumption of fleshy fruits. Seed dispersal by ants ( myrmecochory ) has evolved independently more than 100 times, and is present in more than 11,000 plant species. It is one of the most dramatic examples of convergent evolution in biology. Carnivory has evolved multiple times independently in plants in widely separated groups. In three species studied, Cephalotus follicularis , Nepenthes alata and Sarracenia purpurea , there has been convergence at
1755-446: The proboscis of flower-visiting insects such as bees and flower beetles , or the biting-sucking mouthparts of blood-sucking insects such as fleas and mosquitos . Opposable thumbs allowing the grasping of objects are most often associated with primates , like humans and other apes, monkeys, and lemurs. Opposable thumbs also evolved in giant pandas , but these are completely different in structure, having six fingers including
1820-508: The testis determining factor , usually determines male sexual differentiation. In the absence of the SRY gene from the Y chromosome, usually the female sex (ovaries instead of testes) will develop. The development of the gonads is a part of the development of the urinary and reproductive organs . The gonads are subject to many diseases, such as hypergonadism , hypogonadism , agonadism , tumors, and cancer, among others. A delay in having children
1885-1003: The "chlorophyte algae" and the "streptophyte algae" are treated as paraphyletic (vertical bars beside phylogenetic tree diagram) in this analysis, as the land plants arose from within those groups. The classification of Bryophyta is supported both by Puttick et al. 2018, and by phylogenies involving the hornwort genomes that have also since been sequenced. Rhodophyta [REDACTED] Glaucophyta [REDACTED] Chlorophyta [REDACTED] Prasinococcales Mesostigmatophyceae Chlorokybophyceae Spirotaenia [REDACTED] Klebsormidiales [REDACTED] Chara [REDACTED] Coleochaetales [REDACTED] Hornworts [REDACTED] Liverworts [REDACTED] Mosses [REDACTED] Lycophytes [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Gymnosperms [REDACTED] Angiosperms [REDACTED] Plant cells have distinctive features that other eukaryotic cells (such as those of animals) lack. These include
1950-570: The Mesozoic ) all converged on the same streamlined shape. A similar shape and swimming adaptations are even present in molluscs, such as Phylliroe . The fusiform bodyshape (a tube tapered at both ends) adopted by many aquatic animals is an adaptation to enable them to travel at high speed in a high drag environment. Similar body shapes are found in the earless seals and the eared seals : they still have four legs, but these are strongly modified for swimming. The marsupial fauna of Australia and
2015-517: The N-terminal residue as a nucleophile. This commonality of active site but difference of protein fold indicates that the active site evolved convergently in those families. Conus geographus produces a distinct form of insulin that is more similar to fish insulin protein sequences than to insulin from more closely related molluscs, suggesting convergent evolution, though with the possibility of horizontal gene transfer . Distant homologues of
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2080-857: The Viridiplantae, along with the red algae and the glaucophytes , in the clade Archaeplastida . There are about 380,000 known species of plants, of which the majority, some 260,000, produce seeds . They range in size from single cells to the tallest trees . Green plants provide a substantial proportion of the world's molecular oxygen; the sugars they create supply the energy for most of Earth's ecosystems and other organisms , including animals, either eat plants directly or rely on organisms which do so. Grain , fruit , and vegetables are basic human foods and have been domesticated for millennia. People use plants for many purposes , such as building materials , ornaments, writing materials , and, in great variety, for medicines . The scientific study of plants
2145-801: The amount of cytoplasm stays the same. Most plants are multicellular . Plant cells differentiate into multiple cell types, forming tissues such as the vascular tissue with specialized xylem and phloem of leaf veins and stems , and organs with different physiological functions such as roots to absorb water and minerals, stems for support and to transport water and synthesized molecules, leaves for photosynthesis, and flowers for reproduction. Plants photosynthesize , manufacturing food molecules ( sugars ) using energy obtained from light . Plant cells contain chlorophylls inside their chloroplasts, which are green pigments that are used to capture light energy. The end-to-end chemical equation for photosynthesis is: This causes plants to release oxygen into
2210-431: The atmosphere. Green plants provide a substantial proportion of the world's molecular oxygen, alongside the contributions from photosynthetic algae and cyanobacteria. Plants that have secondarily adopted a parasitic lifestyle may lose the genes involved in photosynthesis and the production of chlorophyll. Growth is determined by the interaction of a plant's genome with its physical and biotic environment. Factors of
2275-471: The back of the retina, rather than the front as in vertebrates. As a result, vertebrates have a blind spot . Birds and bats have homologous limbs because they are both ultimately derived from terrestrial tetrapods , but their flight mechanisms are only analogous, so their wings are examples of functional convergence. The two groups have independently evolved their own means of powered flight. Their wings differ substantially in construction. The bat wing
2340-461: The basis of the modern system of scientific classification , but retained the animal and plant kingdoms , naming the plant kingdom the Vegetabilia. When the name Plantae or plant is applied to a specific group of organisms or taxa , it usually refers to one of four concepts. From least to most inclusive, these four groupings are: There are about 382,000 accepted species of plants, of which
2405-483: The development of forests in swampy environments dominated by clubmosses and horsetails, including some as large as trees, and the appearance of early gymnosperms , the first seed plants . The Permo-Triassic extinction event radically changed the structures of communities. This may have set the scene for the evolution of flowering plants in the Triassic (~ 200 million years ago ), with an adaptive radiation in
2470-437: The dolphin; among marine mammals; between giant and red pandas; and between the thylacine and canids. Convergence has also been detected in a type of non-coding DNA , cis-regulatory elements , such as in their rates of evolution; this could indicate either positive selection or relaxed purifying selection . Swimming animals including fish such as herrings , marine mammals such as dolphins , and ichthyosaurs ( of
2535-617: The exposed surfaces of the proteins, where they might interact with other components of the cell or the digestive fluid. The authors also found that homologous genes in the non-carnivorous plant Arabidopsis thaliana tend to have their expression increased when the plant is stressed, leading the authors to suggest that stress-responsive proteins have often been co-opted in the repeated evolution of carnivory. Phylogenetic reconstruction and ancestral state reconstruction proceed by assuming that evolution has occurred without convergence. Convergent patterns may, however, appear at higher levels in
2600-480: The four species-rich families of annuals ( Asteraceae , Brassicaceae , Fabaceae , and Poaceae ), indicating that the annual life cycle is adaptive. C 4 photosynthesis , one of the three major carbon-fixing biochemical processes, has arisen independently up to 40 times . About 7,600 plant species of angiosperms use C 4 carbon fixation, with many monocots including 46% of grasses such as maize and sugar cane , and dicots including several species in
2665-409: The gametophyte is very small. Flowering plants reproduce sexually using flowers, which contain male and female parts: these may be within the same ( hermaphrodite ) flower, on different flowers on the same plant , or on different plants . The stamens create pollen , which produces male gametes that enter the ovule to fertilize the egg cell of the female gametophyte. Fertilization takes place within
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2730-575: The great majority, some 283,000, produce seeds . The table below shows some species count estimates of different green plant (Viridiplantae) divisions . About 85–90% of all plants are flowering plants. Several projects are currently attempting to collect records on all plant species in online databases, e.g. the World Flora Online . Plants range in scale from single-celled organisms such as desmids (from 10 micrometres (μm) across) and picozoa (less than 3 μm across), to
2795-517: The land 1,200 million years ago , but it was not until the Ordovician , around 450 million years ago , that the first land plants appeared, with a level of organisation like that of bryophytes. However, fossils of organisms with a flattened thallus in Precambrian rocks suggest that multicellular freshwater eukaryotes existed over 1000 mya. Primitive land plants began to diversify in
2860-412: The large water-filled central vacuole , chloroplasts , and the strong flexible cell wall , which is outside the cell membrane . Chloroplasts are derived from what was once a symbiosis of a non-photosynthetic cell and photosynthetic cyanobacteria . The cell wall, made mostly of cellulose , allows plant cells to swell up with water without bursting. The vacuole allows the cell to change in size while
2925-507: The largest trees ( megaflora ) such as the conifer Sequoia sempervirens (up to 120 metres (380 ft) tall) and the angiosperm Eucalyptus regnans (up to 100 m (325 ft) tall). The naming of plants is governed by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants and the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants . The ancestors of land plants evolved in water. An algal scum formed on
2990-656: The late Silurian , around 420 million years ago . Bryophytes, club mosses, and ferns then appear in the fossil record. Early plant anatomy is preserved in cellular detail in an early Devonian fossil assemblage from the Rhynie chert . These early plants were preserved by being petrified in chert formed in silica-rich volcanic hot springs. By the end of the Devonian, most of the basic features of plants today were present, including roots, leaves and secondary wood in trees such as Archaeopteris . The Carboniferous period saw
3055-407: The lineages diverged and became genetically isolated, the skin of both groups lightened more, and that additional lightening was due to different genetic changes. Lemurs and humans are both primates. Ancestral primates had brown eyes, as most primates do today. The genetic basis of blue eyes in humans has been studied in detail and much is known about it. It is not the case that one gene locus
3120-516: The mammal lineage from the placentals. Hummingbird hawk-moths and hummingbirds have evolved similar flight and feeding patterns. Insect mouthparts show many examples of convergent evolution. The mouthparts of different insect groups consist of a set of homologous organs, specialised for the dietary intake of that insect group. Convergent evolution of many groups of insects led from original biting-chewing mouthparts to different, more specialised, derived function types. These include, for example,
3185-468: The mesothelium, underlying mesenchyme and the primordial germ cells. Gonads start developing as a common primordium (an organ in the earliest stage of development), in the form of genital ridges , at the sixth week, which are only later differentiated to male or female sex organs (except when they are not differentiated). The presence of the SRY gene , located on the short arm of the Y chromosome and encoding
3250-454: The metal ion transporters ZIP in land plants and chlorophytes have converged in structure, likely to take up Fe efficiently. The IRT1 proteins from Arabidopsis thaliana and rice have extremely different amino acid sequences from Chlamydomonas ' s IRT1, but their three-dimensional structures are similar, suggesting convergent evolution. Many examples of convergent evolution exist in insects in terms of developing resistance at
3315-405: The molecular level. Carnivorous plants secrete enzymes into the digestive fluid they produce. By studying phosphatase , glycoside hydrolase , glucanase , RNAse and chitinase enzymes as well as a pathogenesis-related protein and a thaumatin -related protein, the authors found many convergent amino acid substitutions. These changes were not at the enzymes' catalytic sites, but rather on
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#17330860230083380-541: The number of lineages that have evolved in a particular trait space. Methods to infer process-based convergence fit models of selection to a phylogeny and continuous trait data to determine whether the same selective forces have acted upon lineages. This uses the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process to test different scenarios of selection. Other methods rely on an a priori specification of where shifts in selection have occurred. Plant See text Plants are
3445-501: The physical or abiotic environment include temperature , water , light, carbon dioxide , and nutrients in the soil. Biotic factors that affect plant growth include crowding, grazing, beneficial symbiotic bacteria and fungi, and attacks by insects or plant diseases . Frost and dehydration can damage or kill plants. Some plants have antifreeze proteins , heat-shock proteins and sugars in their cytoplasm that enable them to tolerate these stresses . Plants are continuously exposed to
3510-474: The placental mammals of the Old World have several strikingly similar forms, developed in two clades, isolated from each other. The body, and especially the skull shape, of the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf) converged with those of Canidae such as the red fox, Vulpes vulpes . As a sensory adaptation, echolocation has evolved separately in cetaceans (dolphins and whales) and bats, but from
3575-538: The plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals , and included algae and fungi . Definitions have narrowed since then; current definitions exclude the fungi and some of the algae. By the definition used in this article, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (green plants), which consists of the green algae and the embryophytes or land plants ( hornworts , liverworts , mosses , lycophytes , ferns , conifers and other gymnosperms , and flowering plants ). A definition based on genomes includes
3640-401: The point of view of cladistics, confounding factors which could lead to an incorrect analysis. In some cases, it is difficult to tell whether a trait has been lost and then re-evolved convergently, or whether a gene has simply been switched off and then re-enabled later. Such a re-emerged trait is called an atavism . From a mathematical standpoint, an unused gene ( selectively neutral ) has
3705-404: The protein (positions 111 and 122). CTS-adapted species have also recurrently evolved neo-functionalized duplications of ATPalpha, with convergent tissue-specific expression patterns. Convergence occurs at the level of DNA and the amino acid sequences produced by translating structural genes into proteins . Studies have found convergence in amino acid sequences in echolocating bats and
3770-462: The repeated development of C 4 photosynthesis , seed dispersal by fleshy fruits adapted to be eaten by animals, and carnivory . In morphology, analogous traits arise when different species live in similar ways and/or a similar environment, and so face the same environmental factors. When occupying similar ecological niches (that is, a distinctive way of life) similar problems can lead to similar solutions. The British anatomist Richard Owen
3835-401: The same conditions were encountered again, evolution could take a very different course." Simon Conway Morris disputes this conclusion, arguing that convergence is a dominant force in evolution, and given that the same environmental and physical constraints are at work, life will inevitably evolve toward an "optimum" body plan, and at some point, evolution is bound to stumble upon intelligence,
3900-467: The same genetic mutations. The Gymnotiformes of South America and the Mormyridae of Africa independently evolved passive electroreception (around 119 and 110 million years ago, respectively). Around 20 million years after acquiring that ability, both groups evolved active electrogenesis , producing weak electric fields to help them detect prey. One of the best-known examples of convergent evolution
3965-589: The same phenomenon is homoplasy . The recurrent evolution of flight is a classic example, as flying insects , birds , pterosaurs , and bats have independently evolved the useful capacity of flight. Functionally similar features that have arisen through convergent evolution are analogous , whereas homologous structures or traits have a common origin but can have dissimilar functions. Bird, bat, and pterosaur wings are analogous structures, but their forelimbs are homologous, sharing an ancestral state despite serving different functions. The opposite of convergence
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#17330860230084030-465: The smallest published genome is that of the carnivorous bladderwort ( Utricularia gibba) at 82 Mb (although it still encodes 28,500 genes) while the largest, from the Norway spruce ( Picea abies ), extends over 19.6 Gb (encoding about 28,300 genes). Plants are distributed almost worldwide. While they inhabit several biomes which can be divided into a multitude of ecoregions , only the hardy plants of
4095-422: The testis, spontaneous new mutations arise and tend to accumulate with age. Evolved independently Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last common ancestor of those groups. The cladistic term for
4160-554: The thumb, which develops from a wrist bone entirely separately from other fingers. Convergent evolution in humans includes blue eye colour and light skin colour. When humans migrated out of Africa , they moved to more northern latitudes with less intense sunlight. It was beneficial to them to reduce their skin pigmentation . It appears certain that there was some lightening of skin colour before European and East Asian lineages diverged, as there are some skin-lightening genetic differences that are common to both groups. However, after
4225-408: Was the first to identify the fundamental difference between analogies and homologies . In biochemistry, physical and chemical constraints on mechanisms have caused some active site arrangements such as the catalytic triad to evolve independently in separate enzyme superfamilies . In his 1989 book Wonderful Life , Stephen Jay Gould argued that if one could "rewind the tape of life [and]
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