Hand in tutorial answers at the beginning of class
Tutorial 3: Speciation and Extinction

Using a circular tree of life, consider the following organisms (link to map):

  • humans
  • mice
  • opossums
  • minke whales
  • pelicans
  • emperor penguins
  • Tyrannosaurus rex
  • great white shark
  • fruit fly- Drosophila melanogaster
  • a baker's yeast
  • E. coli (an intestinal bacteria) 

Task: Place these species on your map.   Where would you place an extinct species on your map?Based on evolutionary principles, how might you link these species on your map.

Q1: Based on your link map, what predications can you make about what the common ancestor of mice and whales looked like?   How about mice and fruit flies? or mice and yeast? 

Q2:  Describe how you generated your map.  What assumptions did you make, and what additional data would have liked to have had?

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