Problem:

Read each question carefully and answer completely.

Question 1: Consider the groupings of fish, pathogenic bacteria and birds. Which grouping is paraphyletic, which grouping is polyphyletic and which grouping is monophyletic?

Question 2: Describe uniformitarianism. How is it a critical aspect for how isotopes and geologic events such as sedimentation layering are interpreted?

Question 3: Describe various fossil evidence for microbial life and tetrapods. Describe how iron gives us biogeochemical evidence for the Great Oxidation Event (also known as the Great Oxygenation Event; GOE). Describe when microbial life and tetrapods appeared in relationship to the GOE (i.e., which occurred before and which occurred after the GOE)? Does atmospheric oxygen provide for more efficient energy production in multicellular organisms?

Question 4: Describe why a steep isochron slope corresponds to a more distant moment in time compared to a gentle isochron slope.

Question 5: Describe isotopic evidence used by scientists to evaluate the saltwater habitat of ancestral lineages associated with the emergence of cetaceans. Describe a synapomorphy that cetaceans share with humans and not fish (hint: part of the respiratory system). Describe a synapomorphy that cetaceans share with artiodactyls and not humans (hint: bone structure).

Please provide discription of all the answers.