Biodiversity
The science of naming and classifying living things.
What is taxonomy?
Amount of organic matter in a system.
What is Biomass?
First step of gene expression, in which a particular segment of DNA is copied into mRNA.
What is transcription?
Changes in the gene pool, and thus the relative frequency of different genotypes in a small population, due to chance.
What is genetic drift?
The evolutionary process by which new and distinct species are formed in the course of evolution.
What is speciation?
Classification category between family and species; first part of the scientific name of an organism.
What is a genus?
A feeding level in a food chain, e.g. producer, herbivore
What is a trophic level?
Triplet of nitrogen bases found on tRNA.
What is an anticodon?
Describes the condition of an allele or genotype in a population when the frequency remains stable over time.
What is genetic equilibrium?
Relationship between two organisms in which one organism benefits and the other is not affected.
What is commensalism?
Similar structures with slightly different functions, indicating shared ancestry.
What are homologous structures?
Conversion of atmospheric nitrogen to nitrate by bacteria and cyanobacteria.
What is nitrogen fixation?
Mendelian law that states that each allele pair segregates independently during gamete formation; applies when genes for two traits are located on different pairs of homologous chromosomes.
What is the law of independent assortment?
An evolutionary process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species into several divergent forms.
What is adaptive radiation?
A method of selecting a sample from a total array in such a way that every possible sample that could be selected has an equal chance of being selected.
What is random sampling?
inability of different populations or species to successfully interbreed due to behavioural, structural or physiological features of the organisms.
What is reproductive isolation?
Number of an individual species living in a particular place at a particular time per unit area.
What is population density?
Genetic inheritance of two or more traits of a characteristic, each of which is expressed in the phenotype.
What is codominance?
Reduced genetic diversity as a result of a population having descended from a small number of colonising ancestors.
What is the founder effect?
Independent evolution of similar traits in species that once shared a common ancestor.
What is parallel evolution?
Method of naming species of organisms with two parts: the generic and specific names, e.g. Eucalyptus crebra.
What is Binomial nomenclature?
Division of environmental resources by coexisting species populations to avoid competition for resources.
What is resource partitioning?
Inheritance from a set of genes that together control a quantitative character such as height.
What is polygenic inheritance (or multiple gene inheritance)
Reproduction from an ovum without fertilisation in animals.
What is parthenogenesis?
A system of gene control outside of the DNA (‘above the genome’)
What is epigenome?