Study Questions - The Paleozoic Era
Readings - chapter 3, website
1)What animal phyla occur in the Vendian, and what do they have in common?
2) What major, extant phyla radiate in the Cambrian?
3) Gould suggested that the Cambrian may have been the first instance of "radiation and competitive contraction". Explain.
4) Describe four factors that may have contributed to the 'explosion' of animal diversity that occurred in the Cambrian.
5) With respect to chordates and vertebrates, what was present in the Cambrian?
6) What major groups of inverts radiated in the Ordovician? Verts? Whats the evidence for terrestrial plant life?
7) What is responsible for the Ordovician mass extinction event?
8) What were the first land animals and when did they evolve?
9) What were the first vascular plants, and why was the evolution of vascular tissue an important adaptation for life on land?
10) What was the major innovation of teh Osteostacans? Why was this an important 'pre-adaptation' to jaws?
11) How did jaws evolve, and what new adaptive zone did this allow vertebrates to exploit?
12) What were ttwo dominant predatory species of the Devonian (one vertebrate and one invertebrate)?
13) What are the adaptive benefits exploited by the Chondrichthyes and then the Teleosts?
14) In which period did vertebrates colonize land? Describe Tiktaalik and one other species in the sequence, describing the signifiacnt anatomical changes in each.
15) Explain how and why the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and O2 were unusual in the Carboniferous. Relate this to plate tectonics and the sizes of terrestrial arthropods.
16) Using either groups of fishes or early tetrapods as an example, explain the sequence, "innovation, radiation, contraction", noting WHY the last two steps occurred with your group.
17) How do the three groups of amniotes differ, and why did they have an advantage in the Permian?
18) What was the climate in the Permian, and why?
19) Name three Permian Synapsid groups. What extant group belongs to this clade?
20) What modern group belong in the Anapsid clade?
21) What plants came to dominate the Permian and why?
22) What was the primary contributor to the mass extinction event that defines the end of the Paleozoic Era?