Chapter Objectives

Chapter 14

The Evolution of Microbial Life

1.  Distinguish between spontaneous generation and biogenesis.

2.  Describe the four stages of the hypothesis for the origin of life on earth.

3.  Explain how natural selection would have affected these first pre-cells.

4.  Discribe S. Miller's "in vitro" apparatus and the implications for the origin of life.

5.  Provide two reasons that would limit the origin of cellular life forms today.

6.  Contrast the nutritional status of autotrophs and heterotrophs.

7.  Compare the two groups of prokaryotic cells, bacteria and archaea.

8.  Describe the atmospheric conditions that likely existed on Earth when life first evolved 3.5-4.0 billion years ago.

9.  Describe how eukaryotic cells evolved via the endomembrane system and endosymbiosis hypothesis.