The vast majority of animals that ever existed are now extinct, but Tereza Jezkova and John Wiens wondered which variables were most important in driving the diversification of species that exist today. Why are there so many species in some phyla, such as Cnidaria (see photo), but so few in others, such as Ctenophora? A sample of Jekova and Wiens' results is shown here. The R2 value represents the strength of the correlation (where 0.00 is lowest and 1.00 is highest). The P value represents the statistical significance. Which five traits look most important?

Question

Accepted Answer

Hi everyone. Let's look at our next question. Which of the following most likely contributes to the species evolution and diversification. Well, we we can we can recall that by evolution and diversification. We would imagine change two populations occurring over long periods of time and causing the development of new species from those populations. So we want to think about which of the answer choices would most likely contribute to these long period these changes occurring and causing eventually the development of new species. So let's look at our answer choices. We have choice A the interaction between organisms and their environment. Well, we know that um natural selection is a major the major driver of evolution and that is precisely the interaction between organisms and their environment. The environment that organisms are in causes changes that arise through mutation to have a beneficial effect or a detrimental effect to the species ability to survive and reproduce and pass on those genetic changes. So the interaction between organisms in the environment is going to be that major driver of evolution and diversification. Uh Well, just look through the other choices just to make sure that none of them arises as a more um The better answer choice B says nuclear radiation which would cause numerous mutations. Well, nuclear radiation can cause mutations which could drive evolution and diversification if those changes are uh advantageous and the species are more likely to reproduce and pass this on. But this isn't going to be a big contributor. You know, that would be just very minor occurring occasionally. And um quite often those mutations due to radiation are deleterious in general. Choice. C. Says the nature of organisms to mutate and evolve on their own. Well this kind of starts the process as organisms mutate. The mutations arise in their D. N. A. Um A little bit of error is built in actually to allow organisms to adapt to their environment. But it's that interaction between the organism and the environment that causes certain changes to be passed on um and different changes in different environments to be passed on, causing say an original species to diversify into many different species to adapt to different environments. So those interactions between different environments between species will be the most likely contributor to that diversification and choice. The natural habitat destruction caused by anthropogenic disturbances. Um Well, habitat destruction is going to cause loss of species as habitat is destroyed. You will lose species and therefore see less diversity so that smaller answer choice either. So again, which of the following most likely contributes to species evolution and diversification choice. A the interaction between organisms and their environment. See you in the next video

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Key Concepts

Evolutionary Diversification

Adaptive Traits

Speciation