Question

for the following groups of organisms, which would be a better fit for their evolutionary history, Arrangement 1 or 2? Come up with a brief list of characteristics that some of the organisms share or don't share to support your argument

A. North american large mammals: raccoons, badgers, seals, and bears

B. North american birds: owls, geese, ducks, and eagles

C. North american small mammals: squirrels, otters, possums, and armadillos

Answer 1

Phylogenetic Analysis:

This is the study of evolutionary relationships between the organisms that is closely related sharing a common ancestor or distantly related, to understand the evolutionary divergence of the organism.

• Genome sequencing of many organism has led to phylogenetic analysis
• Phylogenetic analysis is done by doing multiple sequence alignment, comparing sequences from multiple organisms.
• By doing phylogenetic analysis of the sequences available, the regions of similarity can be obtained. The regions that have not changed when compared between all set of organism. This shows that the regions might be involved in the important function in the organism, evolution has not changed it.
• Evolutionary divergence can be understood, whether or not they have a common ancestral origin.

Group A:

• Raccooon belong to family procyanidae, They are omnivours medium sized mammals.
• Badgers are short-legged omnivores in the family Mustelidae, they are carnivorous mammals.
• Seals are semi aquatic marine carnivorous mammals.
• Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae.

Group B:

• Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes, mostly solitary and nocturnal in habitat.
• Geese belong to the family Anatidae.
• Ducks belong to family Anatidae
• Eagles are large birds that belong to family Accipitridae

Group C:

• Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents.
• Otters are carnivorous mammals belong to family Mustelidae.
• possums belong to family Phalangeridae they are mammals native to Australia and New Guinea
• Armadillo belong to family Chlamyphoridae, has leathery armour shell. Many species of this family are extinct.

Discussion:

Group A:

This group has all organisms form different family, but are closely related. Close relative of seal is badgers and bear. Badger and Raccoon are closely related.

Group B:

This group duck and geese are from same family and are very closely related. Owl and eagle are from different family, might share a common ancestral origin.

Group C:

Squirrels, otters and possums though they belong to different family, might share common ancestral origin. Having already many species that are extinct in the family Chlamyphoridae armadillo would be considered primitive organisms than squirrels, otters and possums.

Arrangement of Group A organism are more closely related when compared to other 2 groups.