1r Batxillerat Escola Túrbula

Curs 2011-12

Chapter 1

The Life of Charles Darwin

1809

1825 -1827

1831-1836

1840

1842

1859

1871

1872-1881 He published works about the investigation in the garden of Down House.

1882

He was born in England.

His father sent him to study medicine but he left his

studies.

He went to Galapagos Islands where he brought new

specimens.

He published "Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle".

He developed the

evolution theory.

He published "On the origin of species".

He published "Descent of man".

He died in England.

Brief biography

Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England

on 1809. He was the fifth of six sons. At the age of nine,

his mother died. Charles Darwin comes from a family of

doctors so his father wanted Darwin to study medicine. In

1825, he was helping his father as an apprentice doctor

since his father and his grandfather were doctors too. In

1827 he presented the discovery that white spores found

in oyster shells were the eggs of a leech. In 1828, he went to Cambridge to do

a degree of theology. He learned the classification of plants, and contributed to

the work in the collections of one of the best museums in Europe. However, he

left his studies because he didn’t like studying.

A teacher of the University of Cambridge started his interest in natural sciences

and botany. This was the reason why he decided to travel around the world.

One of the places which he visited was The Galapagos Islands where he took

new specimens of plants and animals to Europe.

After this travel, he published in 1840 "Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle",

which was a collection about the travel. Two years later he developed the

evolution theory with the book "On the origin of species" where he explains the

evolution, nowadays called Darwinism. Darwin had to assume the criticism of

scientists.

Charles Darwin and Emma Wedgwood, his cousin, were married in 1839. They

had ten children. Darwin was a loving and caring father to his children, however,

two of them died.

In 1871, he published "Descent of man", in this theory he said that the man

comes from something similar to the monkey. However, he was denied by the

church. Nowadays, in 2012, this theory is still debated at the University of

Oxford. This have done the church has finally accepted that we come from the

monkey.

In 1877, the first translation into Spanish of the book "On the origin of species"

was made.

Finally, Charles Darwin died of a mysterious illness and he was buried in

Westminster Abbey together with Isaac Newton and other big scientists.

Meritxell, Marta, Raul, David

Chapter 2

Charles Darwin goes to the Galápagos Islands.

In 1834, Charles Darwin travelled to the Galápagos Islands aboard the HMS Beagle. The Galápagos Islands are composed of many small islands, all formed from a volcanic rock called basalt. For five weeks, the Beagle sailed the waters of the Galápagos Islands under the command of Captain Robert Fitzroy.

After two months of delays, Darwin’s trip had begun. On 16th January the Beagle docked at St. Jago where Darwin enjoyed taking and collecting exotic plants and animals. When Darwin studied about everything he collected he confirmed Lyell’s theory. The Beagle sailed on 8th February with destination to the equator. His objective was to investigate strange places and plants and animals of this place. The young Darwin in two weeks studied very hard the animals and plants of the islands. During his trip was when he first had the idea that the observed white rocks that had been produced by the molten lava from ancient volcanic eruptions, which, to slide to the bottom of the sea, would have dragged crushed shells and coral rock communicating consistency. The most famous fauna of the islands of course are the iguanas, giant tortoises and finches. He seemed little impressed by the iguanas. But he observed their habits closely and his Journal of Researches has some lovely stories of what he saw. He also initially missed the evolutionary clues hidden in the Finches, finding them very

hard to tell apart the different species flock together when eating and drinking. The mocking birds caught Darwin’s eye. He noticed that some of these were different on different islands, but also all similar to mocking birds of the mainland, and collected specimens from each island, labelling them separately.

The Beagle went to Patagonia where Darwin found out a giant fossil. In Andes, Darwin found fossils of shells. Afterwards, they went to Lima and finally they arrived at The Galapagos Islands. Finally, the trip of the Galápagos Islands turned out to be very important to Darwin and science.

Joel, Ainoa, Miriam, Mireia

Chapter 3

The creatures of the Galápagos Islands

Darwin, like many young Victorians, started his scientific career with a voyage around the world. His job was to collect and describe specimens from across the globe which had never been seen by Europeans. Darwin did his fare share of cataloguing and describing species, he made 368 pages of notes on zoology, and his catalogues listed 1529 species and 3907 labeled skins, bones and other dried specimens. That’s more than specimens a day, for 5 years. Some of the species that he discovered were: Turtle of Islas Galapagos

These enormous turtle species, endangered species, live only on Aldabra, in the Indian Ocean and in the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador in the Pacific. Both the first and the second, which gave Charles Darwin fame, reach a length exceeding 1 m reach, exceed 250 kg. The reptiles of this size are probably very old, they grow very slowly. Turtles are known to have lived 150 years.

Land Iguanas

In the Galapagos Islands there are two endemic species of land iguanas, which are dark brown to yellow-orange and live in arid areas of central and western islands. It is estimated that in the Galapagos Islands are located between 5,000 and 10,000 land iguanas. In recent years the number of land iguanas has dropped dramatically and are now endangered.

Testundinidae

Conolophus subcristatus

Boobies

The Galapagos Islands have three different species of boobies - red footed, blue footed and masked. Boobies can be seen playing in most of The Galapagos Islands. Watching these birds is a spectacle, as they can dive into the water while swimming on the surface, almost instantly; this particular skill is what makes them different from other species of boobies.

The Fragates

The frigates, also known as frigate birds, birds are considered "pirates", as they often steal their food from other birds. Unlike most seabirds, their plumage is not waterproof and when there are inns, spends most of their time flying over the sea. Perfectly mastered the art of flying and are known to be birds that have the greatest wing area relative to their body weight in the world. This allows them to almost float in the air like a kite.

Darwin’s Finches

These birds live on the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, right on the equator. They are small birds with a big beak. We see them now as 13 species all feeding on different things in different things in different ways. But all these 13 species evolved from one common ancestor.

Sula nebouxi

Fregata magnificens

Flashy guppies

Guppies are a fishes that live in rivers in a Caribbean Island called Trinidad. The guppies either live with or without the presence of a predator fish, a pike-like thing. The ones living with predators grow up faster, mature at smaller sizes and reproduce earlier; they need to breed as soon as possible because they could get eaten any time. In rivers without predators the guppies can grow up at a more leisurely pace and put more energy into their offspring

Peppered moths

The peppered moth is a moth which flies during the night and rest on trees during the day. Where it is camouflaged to hide from birds. The two most common forms are called typical, a pale speckled moth which is well-disguised on light-coloured lichens growing on trees, and carbonaria, a black (or melanic) moth which is easy to see on the same background.

Pau, Fortià, Sergi, Victor

Biston betularia

Chapter 4

How Natural Selection Works

While Darwin was in Galapagos Island studying some species, he focused on Finches and he realized that in each island there was some species of bird but with different characteristics because of the mutations. After that, he started to study a new idea which had never been studied before, Natural Selection.

Darwin's finches are a group of about 15 species of passerine birds. It is still not clear which bird family they belong to, but they are not related to the true finches. They were first collected by Charles Darwin on the Galápagos Islands during the second voyage of the Beagle. All are found only on the Galápagos Islands, except the Cocos Island Finch from Cocos Island. The most important differences between species are in the size and shape of their beaks, and the beaks are highly adapted to different food sources. The birds are all dull-colored.

The process in nature by which, according to Darwin's theory of evolution, only the organisms best adapted to their environment tend to survive and transmit their genetic characteristics in increasing numbers to succeeding generations while those less adapted tend to be eliminated.

The concept fitness means that in a population there are many individuals of the same species and only those who survive are better adapted because they have better features to adapt to the environment; therefore, they have more offspring. Finally the worst adapted species disappear.

Now, the science has another point of view about this phenomenon. They reckon that evolution is a very important thing to understand how species change and why they mutate in order to be stronger against the environment, but they claim that it is not the only way to answer the questions that life asks us. Darwin did a great work with his studies but nowadays we need more information to make a new Universal Evolution Theory.

Victor, Marc, Kevin, Marta

Chapter 5

Adaptations and Evolution

One of the most interesting biological phenomena is certainly the environmental adaptation of organisms, both animal and vegetable. In general, we see that animals and plants live in a particular environment with their respective characters that make them fitter to live in that particular environment. It may be partial adjustments that are limited to a particular formation of some organs, or even simply the color of the body; but there may be adjustments to cover the entire body of animal or plant, making them unique to live in their own environment. Adaptation is linked to another characteristic phenomenon, which is that of convergence. It consists in the fact that the organisms living in the same environment, even if they belong to groups widely separated from each other, have common characteristics, at least in appearance, or they have a very similar organization. According to the interpretation of adaptation, each agency would be created as we now see it and the organization which makes it particularly suited to life in the particular environment to which it was intended. This is possible, from a theoretical point of view. However, it is necessary to emphasize that the adaptation of organisms to different environments has taken place gradually, and that each animal or plant of a certain group, originally equipped with a common organization, has progressively been adapted to its environment.

The evidence for evolution: - Fossils - Comparative anatomy and physiology - Analogy and homology - Comparative embryology - Artificial selection - Tests of genetic character

Helena, Judtih, Javi, Gerard