Before Darwin
The belief that species do not change over time.
Fixity of species
Scientist who proposed that organisms change over time through adaptation.
Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck
Darwin traveled around the world aboard this ship.
HMS Beagle
Darwin observed that finches on different islands had different versions of this structure.
Beaks
The process Darwin proposed as the mechanism of evolutionary change.
Natural selection
The study of fossils that was founded by Georges Cuvier.
Paleontology
Lamarck’s idea that organisms inherit traits developed during their lifetime.
Inheritance of acquired characteristics
Darwin’s study of where organisms live around the world.
Biogeography
The process where isolated populations become different species over time.
Speciation
The first step of natural selection: members of a population must have this.
Heritable variations
Layers of rock formed from sedimentary material that often contain fossils.
Strata
Lamarck used this animal’s neck length as an example of acquired characteristics.
Giraffes
The study of Earth’s slow geological changes influenced Darwin through this scientist’s work.
Charles Lyell
A characteristic that helps an organism survive and reproduce in its environment.
Adaptation
Populations produce more offspring than their environment can support, causing this.
Struggle for existence
Georges Cuvier explained changes in fossils by proposing that local disasters caused these events.
Catastrophes / mass extinctions
Darwin disagreed with Lamarck because adaptations occur through this process.
Natural selection
Lyell proposed that Earth changes through slow, continuous processes.
Uniformitarianism
Darwin believed Galápagos finches likely descended from this.
A mainland finch ancestor
The individuals with favorable traits survive and reproduce more successfully because they have greater this.
Fitness
Scientists who supported Cuvier’s idea that worldwide catastrophes created new groups of species.
Catastrophists
Darwin and Lamarck both believed species change because organisms share this.
Common ancestry
Fossils of extinct animals like Glyptodon and Mylodon convinced Darwin that species were not this.
Unchanged / fixed
Different species evolving similar traits because they live in similar environments.
Convergent evolution
The final result of natural selection where favorable traits become more common in a population.
Adaptation