This 10 minute video is a great overview of phylogenetic trees, current research done by evolutionary scientists and it's full of pretty & interesting pictures!
Watch by clicking here, then post a comment about some aspect of the video.
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I thought the section of the video on the Rafflesia flower was particularly interesting. I did a little extra research and found out that the reason it emits a smell like rotting flesh is to attract flies, which enter the middle part of the flower in order to pollinate it. What astounds me, though, is that the flower's closest biological relatives are in fact tiny flowers. Where the species diverted on the Tree of Life is a mystery to me, and is a huge motivator to evolutionary biologists around the world who want to unveil the mysteries of our ancestry.
ReplyDeleteThe tree of life has always fascinated me because of its mystique regarding not only the human race but the entire world. The video delved into the deeper meaning of the tree of life, searching for answers to questions that 20 years ago we would have had no answer for. This is Ground-Breaking science. After I did some research in my free time, I found that there are several current theories about the tree of life and where it will lead us. The theory that most interested me was the concept of "infinitibility," also known as a never-ending tree of life. This theory really spoke to me as a person because I believe that if we try to be good, we can suceeed. The key is approaching every day with a good attitude. And that's what these scientists are doing. My heart goes out to them as they discover new creatures, new species, maybe even new domains. It is a beautiful prospect.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that all species on this planet, thoguh differing greatly phenotypically, actually stem from a common ancestor, has always been a soruce of great inqury on my part. It has always facisnated me that no matter how diffrent we humans appear, we are actually not all that much diffrent from a bird, a bug, or a bear. It fills me with a great sense of humility. All beings stem from a common ancestor, with all share something that binds us together, in a interconnected web of realtionships. This relization leads me to feel a great sense of compassion for all living things. It really leads to thinking of the world as one living organism as a whole, ratehr then seperate entities. This is part of my motivation for beign a vegitarian. By killnig an living creatures, we are destroying part of the life force which we are jsut a part of. The pursuit for the discovery of the origins of our common ancestors seems liek a worthly and worthwhiel pursuit. The first step to understand ourselves is understanding where we came from.
ReplyDeleteThere are ZERO comments on Shellem's page...
ReplyDeleteBut anyways, I thought this was a very eye-opening video. To me the most profound part was that of the rafflesia plant. The huge, stinky, rotting-flesh flower, who was originally classed as a fungus because of its horrible stench. Apparently that wasn't the case; its close relatives have teeny tiny flowers that don't give off the yucky smell. I never would have guessed that. It makes us realize that the most important things are on the inside.
Finding out that every single species on the planet are all related based on a family tree, was such an immense and ground-breaking idea, especially the idea that for every three species there are three trees, but by the time there's 50 species, that number has increased exponentially to 35 million possible trees.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting feature of the video was the rafflesia plant, which is huge and smells of rotting flesh. Based on Matt's findings, it is amazing that it related to the a millimeter flower, which doesn't seem to be related at all, but by using the species family trees, we can find out its closest relatives. More importantly, knowledge of the tree of life can help us find new relations between any species and break the vague knowledge of today, and help us understand the Earth's biodiversity in the future.
From Brett:
ReplyDeleteWow!!! There are a number of things I really enjoyed about this video!!! First of all, I love the clarity! The video was easy to understand, and yet it still made various relevant and important points. For example, the situation with the bunnies that was mentioned was extremely straightforward, and yet perfectly explained one of the concepts we have been going over, which is speciation through geographic isolation. However, the thing about this article that I found to be truly fascinating, and equally mind-boggling, is the sheer number of species on Earth. 1.8 million have already been discovered, and that seemed like a lot to me. However, when it was mentioned that there are most likely over 10 million species on Earth, I was utterly amazed. Could it be that we have only discovered 18% of the species on Earth? It is difficult to grasp this concept, but it portrays the world in a whole new light, and shows that we still have so much to learn about and explore. This also shows that although we are so techologically advanced (or at least more so than twenty years ago) now, a plethora of mystery still exists on Earth!!!! Truly fascinating and exciting!!!! :)
From Valerie:
ReplyDeleteThe tree of life is a fascinating idea that can relate all life. This video was fascinating to me and I found it very interesting to see how scientists are making new discoveries about how things are related and what connects us. One really interesting aspect is how we were so wrong about this before and how so many things we thought were not very related turned out to be some of the most related things. The most interesting to me however is how we are able to keep advancing and discovering more. I was amazed with the computer that they built to help narrow down the possibilities when creating the tree and how many possibilities there are to even consider. Just knowing that there are millions of species yet to be discovered and billions of ways to connect them seems like it would turn people away form this yet we continue to search for the answers which I think is very fascinating.
I have to say, the most astounding idea behind the whole video was the notion of how many possible trees there can be. The number is simply astounding. It brings to light the realization that biology simply based on phenotypic observation can be immensely misleading. I was also impressed with how many more undiscovered species Earth holds. This fact unfortunately holds the promise of proving many of today's sentiments about the inter relation between species. How can we determine evolutionary path if we only know 1 out of 5 species that reside on our planet? The last two things i wish to say are: I have seen the giant stanky flower somwhere before (I can't remember where though), and I appreciated the diagram with an overwhelming number of purple bunnies.
ReplyDeleteMitchell said:
ReplyDeleteThis video is a very well made exploration of the tree of life and the relationship of the species therein. The bunnies were a good demonstration of speciation through geographic isolation and the rafflesia flower a phenomenal example of misclassifcation from cursory examination.
Karli said...
ReplyDeleteThis video was fascinating because it really showed how much work had to be put in to actually even decipher a single piece of the Tree of Life. It is honestly mind boggling to think of how many possibilities there are; not to mention how far we have gotten towards decoding our paths. The bunny bit did really well in explaining how the trees could have formed- but to think that we were all once pond scum is just incredible.
Sasha said...
ReplyDeleteThis video was really astounding and humbling in many ways. The sheer number of possibilities of potential trees is just mind-boggling, and the fact that there are scientists willing to slog through the day to day research and inquiry to try to fill in the entire tree is really inspiring. These people are working for something much bigger that themselves, and not only is their work important in terms of the quantity of knowledge available to humans, but it is also crucial in understanding how to help us preserve the other species. This video really put what were trying to do as students of biology and students in general in perspective, because it shows the lasting impact of what being educated and motivated can do both for human learning and for the entire world.
This video was extremely interesting. The fact that there are so many different types of possibilities of trees and how technology helps avoid much of the tediousness of deciphering the tree is incredibly fascinating. It is remarkable that the tree shows how every species is related to eachother in some way. The example of the Rafflesia flower was really captivating because they were able to discover that it was a flower instead of the orginal thought of it being a fungus and how they're related to tiny flowers eventhough they grow to be really big in diameter.
ReplyDeleteDaniel said...
ReplyDeleteThe concept that the amount of possibilities for determining the phylogenies of only 50 species was virtually infinite astounded me. Their comparison of that process to the process of counting all the atoms in the universe made me realize how vast and complicated a process determining the tree of life really was. Similarly, when the Arizona professor said that the amount of species on earth is actually 10 million instead of 2 million, I realized how diverse and complex the ecosystem on our relatively small planet is. Although it most likely wont occur in my lifetime, i look forward to seeing a "complete" tree of life.
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ReplyDeleteI felt that the video was extremely informative, and really opened my eyes to the importance of the Tree of Life, and the study of it. It amazes me that that knowledge that we have of species has all come from the experiments resulting from Darwin’s original ideas. Imagining how little we would know about the world without the experiments of Darwin really emphasizes his importance. Darwin may have been one of the most influential scientists to date. The video explained why the tree of life is called a “Tree”, because of the fact that species have had to branch off from on another in order to form the diverse populations that inhabit earth today. Before watching this video, I honestly had never thought about why the tree of life was given its name, I now understand the relativity of the branching of trees and evolution. My absolute favorite part of the video was the part with the different color bunnies, SOOO cute, but still informative :)
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