What are the Most Important Evolutionary Innovations?
Evolutionary innovations apppear to have been relatively few and far between in the first three or so billion years of life on Earth. The major evolutionary innovations during this time were the evolution of oxyphotosynthetic bacteria and complex cells (eukaryotes). Though life itself originated at least 3.7 billion years ago, it wasn’t until about 600 million years ago that the first hard evidence of multicellular life appears. Discounting protozoan (unicellular) evolutionary innovations, which many scientists would argue are the most important of all on technical grounds, there are a number of evolutionary innovations, the usefulness of which is obvious to anyone. Five evolutionary innovations which seem most important are the evolution of a third germ layer, which enables a body cavity, also called a coelom; predation, which kickstarted an arms race of evolutionary change; eyes, which after their initial evolution became so successful that the majority of macroscopic animals possess
