Biodiversity in the Fossil Record

Biodiversity is the variation in the life forms that live on Earth, and is measured in either
the total number of species, or how common each species is in an area. The purpose of this
investigation was to find out how biodiversity on Earth has changed over time. The investigation
found whether all of the life on Earth appeared at the same time and that biodiversity has
remained the same; modern life on earth came from other other forms of life other a long time so
that biodiversity has increased; or that all life on earth appeared at the same time and that modern
life are the survivors of catastrophes so that biodiversity has decreased. We felt that biodiversity
increased throughout Earths history based on knowledge of evolution. Through the mechanisms
of evolution, such as mutation, genetic diversity increases due to random change.
In order to figure out which hypothesis was correct, the investigation analyzed the fossil
record. During the experiment, a copy of the data table Diversity and the Fossil Record Lab
Sheet was created.. Four time points were chosen, and in order to have the most accurate
representation, the four points were spread out evenly and covered the whole history of the
Earth. Then, quantitative data, or the amount of families inside each class (Mammalia, Reptilia,
Amphibia, Insecta, Gastropoda, Cephalopoda, Brachiopoda, Porifera, Angiosperms,
Gymnosperms, and Bacteria/Fungi/Algae), for each of the four time points was collected. The
replace tool was used to change all of the ?s to 1s, since ?s in the data table represented
that fossils with dates earlier and later were found. Since extinct organisms cannot reappear, this
suggests that fossils from the family existed in the period. Then, we used the sum tool to add
up all of the 1s in all of the columns of the data table to see the amount of families in the class.
A data table was then created, indicating how many families in each class were present during
each of the four time points. (See page 3.) Following that, a scatter plot with trend lines

indicating the growth or decline of biodiversity was created. (See page 4.) By studying the graph,
we saw dramatic increases in the amount of biodiversity in each class on Earth.
After the completion of the investigation, the conclusion was that modern life came from
other forms of life over a long period of time, so that biodiversity has increased throughout
Earths history. This is because our data shows that since the time that Earth was formed, about
4.6 billion years ago, the amount of families that existed inside each class has increased steadily,
albeit with minor fluctuations. The amount of families inside the class Gastropoda increased
from 34 to 223 between 393 million years ago and 0.01 million years ago. This shows that the
life could not have all appeared at the same time so that biodiversity stays the same, because the
data clearly points to the contrary. The data also proves that biodiversity could not have
decreased as a result of catastrophic events. The second hypothesis is proven correct because it
shows that organisms alive today evolved from other forms of life. In the beginning of Earths
history, there were only bacterial life, but as billions of years passed, more and more life forms
developed from the initial life. While catastrophic events wiped out some life, the surviving life
evolved so that biodiversity never stopped increasing. Even though this investigation relatively
confidently concluded that biodiversity has increased steadily over time, there is room for every.
This is due to the fact that only four data points, however evenly spread out, were chosen. The
data points could possibly be outliers, and could have skewed.