Turning Points In Biology Essay

The immense complexity of living organisms, extreme genetic diversity and an organism's ability to adapt to one’s environment indicate that the development of sexual reproduction and the Cambrian Explosion are the most important turning points in organic life.

Around 1.5 billion years ago, scientists suggest that the first exchange of DNA occured, resulting in the first act of sexual reproduction and thus a massive leap for organic complexity and evolution. Before this time, prokaryotes and eukaryotes would clone themselves as a method of reproduction and prolonging of their species. This lead to little genetic diversity (if mutation didn’t occur) and no rise in complexity thus lower rates of adaptation to the changing environment. Researches suggest that limited food during long stretches of time resulted in eukaryotes consuming one-another which in turn caused of exchange of DNA. The inclusion of sexual reproduction as a method of sustainability for a species changed the landscape of

This is because when the DNA sets of two partners are used to create another organism, newer and more complex DNA forms therefore an extreme acceleration in the complexity and evolution of life occurs . Natural selection is then allowed to choose from a larger pool of organic variation leading to higher survival rates in an ever-changing environment. The introduction of sexual reproduction is significant to the evolution of life as it gave the tools that would allow species to survive through genetic diversity.

The Cambrian Explosion is an extremely significant event in the history of life. The terms refers to the sudden emergence of complex and diverse species that occured around 541 million years ago. This burst of diversity is explained through multiple fossils of mineralized skeletons relating to a large amount of complex