Key Terms
What is Species?
A group of similar organisms that can mate and produce fertile offspring
What are fossils?
The preserved remains, impressions, or traces of organisms (plants, animals, microbes) from past geological ages
What is a common ancestor?
The organism to which other organism all came from and are related to.
Slow gradual change (one way evolution occurs)
Gradualism
What is the name of the Island were Scientist study the evolution in a wide range variety of animals?
Galapagos Islands
What is Evolution?
The slow gradual change in a species overtime
What are Petrified Fossils?
Fossils in which the mineral in the water gradually replace the buried remains and turn them in rocks.
What is punctuated equilibria?
When a species evolves during short periods of rapid change followed by long periods of little or no change.
he was a naturalist who came up with the idea of evolution that occurs by natural selection.
Charles Darwin
According to recent DNA comparisons, to which animal dogs are more similar to?
Wolves
What is a Scientific Theory?
A well tested concept that explains a wide range of observations.
What is a mold?
The hollow or empty space that is left when the buried remains dissolve. This space is the shape of the the organism.
What are vestigial structures?
Structures used in the past, but not today. Ex: Wisdom teeth, appendix, tall bone.
(A physical feature, organ, or behavior in a species that has lost most or all of its original ancestral function through evolution).
What do you call when organisms become separated from the group by a volcano, mountains, water, and other natural disasters?
Geographic Isolation
What do you call a mold when becomes filled in with hardened mineral, and it is the exact replica of the original?
Cast
What is Overproduction?
When species produce more offsprings that can possibly survive
How can fossils help us understand evolution?
Fossils let us see into earths history, and how organisms changes overtime.
What does it mean to have Similarities in DNA?
The more similarities in the DNA sequences, the more closely related the species.
What was Lamarck's idea of how evolution occurs?
He believed that evolution occurred by the inheritance of acquired traits
How do new species form?
When some of the group become separated long enough that they develop different traits, and can no longer mate.
What is Variation? (In Natural Selection)
Any difference between individuals of the same species that helps them survive.
What are the ways a Scientist uses to determine a fossil's age?
- Relative dating (a technique used to determine which of 2 fossils is older - deeper fossils are older)
- Absolute dating (a technique used to determine the actual age of the fossil)
What are homologous structures?
Structures that are arranged the same but are used for a different purpose.
What is the name for a diagram that shows how different groups of organisms are related, connecting the back to the common ancestor?
Branching Tree
What did Charles Darwin did not understand about evolution?
The genetic connection