Vocab
Scientists
Natural Selection
Evolution
Vocab 2
100
Define evolution.
What is the process of biological change by which descendants come to differ from their ancestors.
100
Who proposed a new system of organization for plants, animals, and minerals, based upon their similarities?
Who is Carolus Linnaeus.
100
What is natural selection?
What is a mechanism by which individuals that have inherited beneficial adaptations produce more offspring on average than do other individuals.
100
What is paleontology?
What is the study of fossils.
100
What is fitness?
What is a measure of the ability to survive and produce more offspring relative to other members of the population in a given environment.
200
What is a species?
What is a group of organisms so similar to one another that they can reproduce and have fertile offspring.
200
Who discussed important ideas about relationships among organisms, sources of biological variation, and the possibility of evolution.
Who is Georges Buffon.
200
The heritable differences, or variations, that exist in every population are the basis for natural selection.
What is variation.
200
Remnants of organs or structures that had a function in an early ancestor.
What are Vestigial structures.
200
All the individuals of a species that live in an area.
What is a population.
300
What are fossils?
What are traces of organisms that existed in the past.
300
Who considered how organisms could evolve through mechanisms such as competition?
Who is Erasmus Darwin.
300
Producing more offspring than needed which causes a competition between offspring for resources.
What is overproduction.
300
Structures that perform a similar function but are not similar in origin.
What are Analogous structures.
300
Define artificial selection.
What is the process which humans change a species by breeding it for certain traits.
400
What is catastrophism?
What is a theory that states that natural disasters such as floods and volcanic eruptions have happened ofter during Earth's long history.
400
Who presented evolution as occuring due to envitionmental change over long periods of time?
Who is Jean-Babtiste Lamark.
400
A feature that allows an organism to better survive in its environment.
What is adaptation.
400
Features that are similar in structure but appear in different organisms and have different structures.
What are Homologous structures.
400
What is a gene pool?
What is the combined alleles of all of the individuals in a population.
500
What is uniforitarianism?
What is a theory that states that the geologic processes that shape Earth are uniform through time.
500
Who spent more than 20 years compiling evidence before publishing in 1859 his ideas on how evolution works?
Who is Charles Darwin.
500
Over time, natural selection will result in species with adaptations that are well suited for survival and reproduction in an environment. More individuals will have the trait in every following generation, as long as the environmental conditions continue to remain beneficial for that trait.
What is descent with modification.
500
What is the study of the distribution of organisms around the world?
What is biogeography.
500
Define allele frequency.
What is a measure of how common a certain allele is in the population.
M
e
n
u