ZOOLOGY

Unit- 7 Evolutionary Biology

Chapter- 7.1 Life and its origin
At present, there is no presence of life on any heavenly body except the earth. To know about the origin of
life, the origin of earth is first to be known.
Origin of Earth and primitive atmosphere
Scientists believed that the earth was formed about 5-6 billion years ago. The sun and the planets were formed
together from a spherical cloud of gases and cosmic dusts by gradual condensation. There are two hypotheses
for its origin.
i) Planetesimal hypothesis- French philosopher George Buffon put forward a first hypothesis for origin of the
solar system in 1749. According to this hypothesis, the sun colloidal with a comet. As a result, a very large
amount of matter was thrown out of the sun. These hot masses cooled to form planets including our earth.
ii) Nebular hypotheses- In 1755 a German philosopher Immanuel Kant put forward a nebular hypothesis. It
was further improved by Laplace in 1796 AD. According to this hypothesis, the solar system evolved about
4.5 billion years ago. As the gaseous cloud condensed, the central mass formed the sun and the peripheral
mass of cloud, which continued rotating around the central mass, formed the planets such as Mercury (Budha),
Venus (Sukra), Earth, Mars (Mangal)etc.
Origin of Life
The origin of life on earth has been the most attracting and complicated problems for the biologists. Different
biologists have proposed different theories concerning the origin of life. The theories are:
Ancient Theories
- Special Creation theory (Theory of special Creation)
- Cosmogenic theory or spore theory or Panspermia
-Theory of Spontaneous generation (Abiogenesis or Autogenesis)
- Theory of Biogenesis
Modern hypothesis
-Biochemical origin of life or Oparin and Haldane's theory or Modern concept of origin of life.
A. Ancient Theories
1. Theory of special creation
According to this theory, the life was created by super natural power or god. According to Hindu mythology,
God Brahma (God of creation) created various forms of life in one stroke. The first man was Manu and first
woman was Shradha. According to Christian thought the god created universe, earth, plants, animals, and man
within seven days. God creates in 1st day- light (day and night) heaven, earth, 2nd day- sky and atmosphere,3rd
day-dry land and plants, 4th day- sun,moon and stars, 5th day- birds and fishes, 6th day-animals and humans, 7th
day-god rested(build church and blessed people). The first man was Adam and first woman was Eve.
This theory was put forward by a spinash priest, Father Saurez (1548-1671). This theory has no sound logic
and scientific basis. Therefore, it is not accepted by scientists.
2. Theory of Panspermia or cosmozoic theory
This theory was proposed by Richter (1865) and was supported by Arrhenius (1908). According to this theory,
life came on earth from some other planets or space in the form of spores, seeds or other particles etc. called
panspermia. This theory was discarded in the absence of evidences.

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3. Theory of Spontaneous generation (Abiogenesis or Autogenesis)
According to this theory, life originated spontaneously or automatically from nonliving materials about 3.5
billion years ago. Greek Philosopher like Thales (640-546 B.C), Anaximander (611-547 B.C.), Anaximenes
(582-524 B.C) Empedocles (495-435 B.C), Aristotle (384-322 B.C) etc. were the followers of this theory. It
was believed that the frog, toads, snakes and field mice arose from mud, parasites, beetles and flies arose from
sweat and manure, insects from dew, butterfly from cheese and maggots from decaying meat.
4. Theory of Biogenesis (Life from life)
This theory states that the life originates from the pre-existing life which is present in the atmosphere. When
they get suitable conditions, they grow and multiply. This theory was experimentally proved by following
scientists.
a) Reddi's Experiment
Italian physician Francisco Redi (1621-1697) demonstrated that life originated from pre-existing life. Redi
placed boiled meat in three jars ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’. Jar A covered with parchment paper, Jar B with fine muslin
cloth and Jar C was left uncovered. After few days, meat decayed in all the three jars but maggots appeared
only in uncovered Jar C because the flies could lay eggs on meat in the Jar C.
So, this experiment proved that the maggots were not originated from inanimate substances (meat). It
originated from pre-existing flies which might be present already in the atmosphere.

Fig- Experiment showing the biogenesis by Redi

b) Spallanzani's Experiment
In 1765 Italian scientist Lazzaro spallanzani performed an experiment in favour of biogenesis. He poured hay
infusion in eight bottles and boiled all of them. Four of them were just corked and other four were made
airtight. After few days, he found that there was thick growth of microorganism in all the corked bottles but
not in the air tight bottles. He concluded that air contains microorganism and it was the source of
contamination.
On the basis of the above experiment, it could state that the microorganisms were created not from inanimate
hay infusion but from the pre-existing form which were present already in the atmosphere

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 Fig- Experiment showing the biogenesis by Spallanzani
c) Pasteur's Experiment (1822-1895 AD)
French microbiologist Louis Pasteur also conducted an experiment in support of Biogenesis in 1864. In this
experiment, he boiled hay infusion in a swan-necked flask to kill the microorganism and made it sterile. The
flask remained free of life for over 18 months. But when the mouth of swan necked flask was broken and
infusion came in contact with air and then microbes appeared. Thus, Pasteur proved that life comes from pre-
existing life only.

Fig- Various steps in Louis Pasteur experiment on biogenesis

B. Modern hypothesis / Theories
Biochemical origin of life or Oparin and Haldane’s theory or Modern concept of origin of life or
Chemosynthetic theory of origin of life
It is the modern and widely accepted concept of the origin of life. This theory was put forwarded by two
workers independently, Russian biochemist A.I. Oparin in 1923 and an English biochemist J.B.S. Haldane in
1928. According to this theory life on the earth was originated from non-living inorganic substances (Carbon,
Hydrogen, Nitrogen and Oxygen) in the ocean of primitive earth about 3.3 billion years ago through a series
of chemical reactions.
This theory can be explained under three steps- Chemogeny (chemical evolution/ synthesis of organic
molecules), biogeny (biological evolution/ Formation of self- reproducing biological organisms) and
Cognogeny (modification and advancement of primitive of life ).

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1. Chemogeny (Chemical evolution)
It involves the formation of complex organic molecules like polysaccharides, fats, nucleic acids, proteins etc.
from simple inorganic substances. In this process, various chains of chemical reaction occurred in primitive
sea water. The various steps of chemogeny are as follows-
- Formation of water, ammonia, methane and cynamide
-Formation of hydrocarbon
- Formation of carbohydrates, aminoacids and fatty acids
- Formation of Nitrogen bases (purines and pyrimidines)
i) Formation of water, ammonia, methane and cynamide (simple inorganic substances)
Elements like hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and carbon were most abundant on the primitive earth in the
beginning. These elements existed in the gaseous state due to its high temperature. As the earth surface
gradually cooled, these elements reacted with each other to form water (H2O), ammonia (NH3), methane
(CH4), Carbondioxide(CO2), Carbonmonoxide(CO) and cynamide(CH2N2). These molecules were considered
as the key molecules in the event of origin of life on earth.
H2+1/2 O2 H2O (water)
N2+ 3H2 2 NH3(ammonia)
C+2H2 CH4(Methane)
Water existed as superheated steam. Superheated steam condensed into water and resulted in rain. This cycle
continued for millions of years and resulted in the cooling of earth surface and water bodies like river, lakes
and ocean were formed.
ii) Formation of hydrocarbon
As the earth surface cooled down to 1000c or even low, the highly reactive free radicles of hydrocarbon
combine with each other and formed saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbon.
CH+ CH C2H2 (acetylene)
CH2+ CH2 C2H4 (ethylene)
CH2+ CH2 CH4+C (methane)
These hydrocarbon further react with water (steam) and formed oxy and hydroxyl derivatives of hydrogen
(i.e. aldehyde and ketone)
C2H2 + H2O CH3CHO (Acetaldehyde)
iii) Formation of carbohydrates, aminoacids and fatty acids
Due to condensation, polymerization and oxidation-reduction of hydrocarbon, complex molecules such as
simple sugar, amino-acids and fatty acids were formed.
CH4 + H2O Simple sugar (C6H12O6)
CH4 + H2O + NH3 Amino acids
iii) Formation of Nitrogen bases (purines and pyrimidines)
When hydrocarbons reacted with hot water vapour, hydrocyanic acid (HCN) and ammonia (NH3), nitrogen
bases like purines and pyrimidines were formed.
CH4+HCN+ H2O+NH3 Nitrogen bases (CnHnNnOn)
Energy for such reaction was available from Ultraviolet (UV) radiation of sunlight, electric energy
from lightening and heat energy from volcanoes or high temperature of primitive earth.

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As primitive sea water at that stage was hot and full of aminoacids, nitrogen bases, simple sugars and other
organic molecules, it is named as “hot dilute soup" or “primordial soup" or “broths" by Haldane.The
formation of proteins molecules can be considered a landmark in the event of the origin of life.
2. Biogeny (Biological evolution)
This step involves the formation of complex self-reproducing biological molecules. It consists of following
steps.
- Formation of Nucleic acids
-Formation of coacervates
-Formation of Primary organisms
i) Formation of Nucleic acids
Nitrogen bases like purines and pyrimidines combined with sugar and phosphate group at high temperature of
primitive earth to form nucleotides or nucleoproteins. A large number of such nucleotides were combined to
form nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA.
The formation of nucleoproteins was the significant event in the formation of life on the earth. Since
nucleoproteins were capable of self-duplication or multiplication. Due to their self-duplicating property, these
were capable of performing hereditary function. Hence DNA and RNA are called self-replicating molecules.
So, they were considered as the first sign of origin of life.
ii) Formation of coacervates
The nucleic acids along with other complex organic compounds (macromolecules) of primordial soup in the
ocean aggregated due to intermolecular attraction and form large and highly organized colloidal system
called coacervate or microsphere. Formation of coacervates was called coacervation. The nucleic acid
controlled the activities of coacervate and the fats formed a layer around it. These were the intermediate
between the molecules and the life. Oparin considered coacervates to be the intermediate living organisms that
gave rise to life.
iii) Formation of Primary organisms
Now coacervates started absorbing organic substances from oceanic soup and become multiplying. These
grew in size and multiplied and resulted to the formation of anaerobic heterotrophs or proto-cell or first cells.
Oparin called them protobionts or ebionts. Protobionts originated about 3.8 billion years ago. These were
similar to the virus. These first cells gradually gave rise to 2 types of cells-prokaryotic cell (without definite
nucleus) like monera and eukaryotic cell (with definite nucleus) like protista. Monera evolved into bacteria,
cynobacteria and blue green algae. The first aerobic photosynthetic organisms probably were some
cyanobacteria like organisms evolved 3.3-3.5 billion years ago. Protista gave rise to eukaryotes that evolved
into Protozoa, Metazoa and Metaphyta.
3. Cognogeny (Modification of life- Diverfication of protozoa, metazoa and metaphyta)
Due to shortage of food materials in the sea, these organisms changed their feeding habit and became
parasitic, saprophytic, chemosynthesizers, photosynthetic and so on. With the evolution of chlorophyll
molecules, oxygen was released continuously as by-product of photosynthesis and this changed the earth’s
reducing atmosphere to oxidizing one.
Miller and Urey Experiment
(Experimental evidence in support of Biochemical Theory of origin of life)
Stanley L. Miller and Harold C. Urey (1953 A.D) designed a first classical laboratory experiment in favour of
Oparin’s biochemical concept where organic compounds were formed in nature by the combination of simple
inorganic molecules.

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 They set up the glass apparatus of glass tubes and glass flask or chamber (water and gas
chamber) as shown in figure. They created the primitive condition of atmosphere by evacuating the apparatus
to make sterile and then introduced the mixture of gases like hydrogen, methane, ammonia in gaseous
chamber in the ratio 2:2:1. Water in the flask was boiled to promote circulation and provide necessary water
vapor for reaction. Energy was supplied by heating the liquid as well as by electric spark from electrodes
(about 75000volt) in the gaseous chamber. The experiment was run continuously for about a week. A mixture
of different small organic molecules was formed in the gas chamber (atmosphere) and was carried by
condensation (rain) to the liquid flask trap (ocean).
After one week of treatment, miller chromatographed the final solution and found many organic compound-
like amino acids (alanine, glycine and aspartic acid), fatty acid, simple sugar (ribose) etc. The formation of
organic molecules in the experimental condition suggests the biochemical origin of life. Thus, the experiment
of Miller-Urey supports the opinion of Oparin and Haldane.