a) What is the best estimate (mean age), in millions of years, for the divergence of the clade containing the American Giant Short Faced Bear from the clade containing the Sloth Bear? b) According to Figure 1, bears as a group experienced substantial evolutionary radiation near what geological boundary? c) True or False. An entire clade of bears has gone extinct because the two extinct bear species in the figure are sister species. d) What bears are the nearest relatives of the Sun Bear?
Evolution
The history and science of origin and evolution comprise two events, the beginning of life and expansion of life. Our earth originated about 4.5 billion years ago. The term evolution is derived from two Latin words and means the act of unfolding or unrolling. English philosopher Herbert Spencer first used it. Evolution is defined as the change in heritable traits of biological populations over successive generations. These traits are the manifestations of genes that are passed down from parent to offspring during reproduction.
Cladistics
Cladistics is a technique in the classification of organisms, where they are grouped into different clades. The proof for the relationships that are hypothesized is based on the shared derived characteristics known as synapomorphies. These characteristics do not exist in many of the distant ancestors and groups. The common ancestor along with its descendants is considered to be a part of the clade. The rate of closeness is directly proportional to the cladistic grouping and is useful in analyzing the evolutionary mechanism.
Outgroups
Outgroups are significant in studying cladistics or phylogenetics (that describe the evolutionary relationship between different organisms). Further, it is also important to understand the differences and similarities between different organisms.
Taxonomy
It is the branch of biology that works with the identification of organisms at first, then naming, and classification of them into phenetic or phylogenetic groups (a classification system). In other words, it is the scientific study of biological diversity and a part of systematic biology.
Phylogenetics
Phylogenetics is the scientific study of how various groups of organisms are related at the evolutionary level. It finds the relationship between various organisms based on their evolutionary similarities and differences. It is a part of the taxonomy. Although the taxonomic study is not only concerned about phylogeny but taxonomic studies are also concerned about the classification and nomenclature of the different individuals from different taxon.
a) What is the best estimate (mean age), in millions of years, for the divergence of the clade
containing the American Giant Short Faced Bear from the clade containing the Sloth Bear?
b) According to Figure 1, bears as a group experienced substantial evolutionary radiation near
what geological boundary?
c) True or False. An entire clade of bears has gone extinct because the two extinct bear species
in the figure are sister species.
d) What bears are the nearest relatives of the Sun Bear?
![The Cave Bear and the American Giant Short-faced Bear are both extinct. All the other species
are extant. Plio = Pliocene, Plei = Pleistocene, and Hol = Holocene.
Figure 1:
t₁
MP-MLU-MLp-Bayesian 14.32
tx 1977-16581
node 95% CI
35.7
mean age (Ma)
Epochs Eocene
Ma
34
Oligocene
23.8
100-100-100-1.00 12.86
19.09
ta[14.38-24.79]
t[9.77-16.58)
Miocene
100-100-100-1.00
100-100-100-1.00 5.39
0.88
t10.66-1.17]
ta 14.2-6.861 2.75 polar bear
to (2.1-3.57)
85-93-93-1.00 5.05
ts 13.9-6.481
99-97-94-1.00 to 4.08
76-94-97-1.00
100-100-100-1.00 5.66
[3.11-5.27)
4.58
ta (3.51-5.89)
sloth bear
t10 (4.26-7.34)
-brown bear
100-100-100-1.00
-cave bear
-Asian
black bear
American
black bear
-sun bear
-American giant
short-faced bear
-spectacled
bear
-giant pandal
-harbor seal
Global expansion of C4 biomass
Major temperature drop and increasing seasonality
Faunal turnover
Plio Plei Hol
5.3 1.8 0.01](/v2/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcontent.bartleby.com%2Fqna-images%2Fquestion%2Ff57d3743-5e44-4060-83da-5d90a37d31c6%2Ff744701d-d8f6-480c-91ad-145120e7f373%2F2puycxb_processed.png&w=3840&q=75)
A clade is a group of organisms that shared a recent common ancestor.
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