Sea Lab Helps Shape "The Shape of Life"

It's one of the greatest – and most perplexing – biological mysteries of all time. How did animal life emerge on Planet Earth? Ever since Charles Darwin put forth his remarkable theory of evolution, scientists have suspected that all animals – from whales to humans, clams to jellyfish, dragonflies to ants – could trace their origin to a single creature. But what could that animal be? What did it look like? How did it behave?

Now, thanks to a recent revolution in scientific understanding, it is a story that can at last be told. For the first time, scientists think that they have actually uncovered that creature – the animal that gave rise to us all.

The Shape of Life, an eight-part television series that will air in April 2002 on PBS, chronicles a revolution, in which breakthroughs in genetics, paleontology, and biology are enabling scientists to rewrite – with unprecedented detail – the rise of animal life on earth. Clue-by-clue, scientists are piecing together how the first animals of earth have led to the astonishing diversity of creatures we know today.

Surprisingly, while millions and millions of species have evolved, only a handful of basic designs, or body plans, ever emerged. And as astounding as it might seem, every living animal is a refinement of these basic models.

Examining the few body plans that represent the templates for all animal life and understanding the origin of these body plans, we can begin to ask: Why do animals look, behave, and function as they do? How have different species influenced each other through millions of years of animal history? And how has this history been shaped by the raw genetic material available when animals first appeared?

Understanding the animal kingdom, both its origin and its organization, has perhaps never been so important. Humanity faces difficult, complicated choices about its relationship with the natural world. The loss of biological diversity is one of the world’s most critical environmental issues, and we are facing choices affecting biological diversity without understanding its nature. The Shape of Life will present the animal kingdom in its full diversity, interconnected, largely invertebrate, and the result of millions of years of evolution.

The Shape of Life is a celebratory tale that will probe our most basic queries about our biological beginnings: What are animals? How did the diversity of animals that surround us come to be? How is each animal an evolutionary solution to a set of environmental challenges? How is each animal’s shape an elegant statement of the relationship between form and function? How did the constraints of a few, simple body plans affect the process of evolution?
 

EPISODE TWO: LIFE ON THE MOVE
When we think of animals, we think of movement. Surprisingly, the diverse and graceful ballet of movement may have started with a single group of creatures whose descendants were the first to harness the power of muscles and nerves. How did their dramatic forays forever transform the world?

EPISODE THREE: THE FIRST HUNTER
The first animal to develop a head, eyes and a brain also pioneered a new way to survive: it would become earth’s first hunter. Dramatic new evidence points to an unlikely and oddly charismatic subject…a flat, worm-like creature, whose hunting and sexual exploits helped mark a defining moment in the shape of life.

EPISODE FOUR: EXPLOSION OF LIFE
According to fossil evidence, it appears as if in one dramatic moment – the Cambrian Explosion – an amazing menagerie of animals suddenly appeared on earth. What animals appeared? What caused this sudden proliferation of life? Surprisingly, one of the least suspecting and simplest of these new life forms – the annelid worms – would help shape the world we know today.

EPISODE FIVE: THE CONQUERORS
For hundreds of millions of years, animal life resided only in the oceans. And then, in one extraordinary event, something happened that enabled one group of animals to emerge from the sea. Follow scientists as they track how the shape of life transformed to create the animals that led the first successful land invasion and were the first to pioneer flight.

EPISODE SIX: SURVIVAL GAME
To survive, all animals rely on incredible offensive and defensive strategies. Octopus, squid, cuttlefish, and snail – all molluscs – evolved from the same animal design. How did the struggle for survival lead to such different variations? What secret do they reveal about the survival game?

EPISODE SEVEN: ULTIMATE ANIMAL
At first blush, one might believe that animals like us – creatures with heads, eyes and brains – are evolution’s crowning achievement. Yet there are animals with no head, eyes or centralized brains that accomplish feats impossible for us even to attempt. Enter their bizarre world as we try to determine if there’s an ultimate animal on earth.

EPISODE EIGHT: BONES, BRAINS & BRAWN
From the beginning of human history, we have told stories to explain our place among the animals. Today’s scientists are writing new tales, populated by faceless creatures, giant gelatinous blobs, killer dragons and monstrous dinosaurs. How is it possible that our big, brawny, brainy bodies owe their very existence to some of the oddest creatures of the animal kingdom?

Executive producers for the series are Mark Shelley and Nancy Burnett, founders of Sea Studios, Inc. and the Sea Studios Foundation. David Elisco is the series producer.
Please check out your local PBS station for dates and times of Shape of Life.

(Text of this article is provided by Monterey’s Sea Studios Foundation)