History of Evolutionary Thought
He sailed on the HMS Beagle and developed the theory of natural selection.
Who is Charles Darwin?
The environment favouring certain triats and individuals within a population.
What is natural selection?
The study of geographic distribution of organisms based on both living species and fossils.
What is biogeography?
This term refers to all the genes and alleles in a population.
Changes in the genetic material of a population over time.
What is evolution?
This scientist independently developed the idea of natural selection while working in the Malay Archipelago.
Who is Alfred Russel Wallace?
The environment favours individuals with extreme phenotypes.
What is disruptive selection?
The human coccyx, the appendix, and muscles that move the ears are body parts that no longer serve their original function but remain as evolutionary remnants.
In small populations, alleles can become fixed or lost.
What is genetic drift?
A short-term response to the environment within an individual’s lifetime.
What is an adjustment?
The theory that the pattern of fossils could be accounted for by a series of global catastrophes that wiped out most species on Earth.
What is catastrophism?
Farmers breeding crops for increased size and yeild.
What is artificial selection?
Tiktaalik ventures onto land and has lobbed fins, strong ribs for support, and both gills and lungs.
What is a transitional fossils?
A drastic reduction in population size due to events like fires or floods, resulting in a loss of genetic diversity.
What is bottleneck effect?
Heritable differences between individuals.
What is variation?
English economist suggests human population size is limited by resources.
Who is Thomas Malthus?
Environmental/ecological conditions that cause a certain phenotype or trait to have a better chance of surviving and reproducing.
What are selective pressures?
Measuring the age of fossils using isotopes like carbon-14, potassium-argon, or uranium-lead.
What is radiometric dating?
The reduced genetic diversity that occurs when a small group migrates.
What is the founder effect?
The result is a population that is better suited to their environment.
What is adaptation?
The theory that geological changes are slow and gradual and the natural laws and processes have not changed over time.
What is uniformitarianism?
In a bird species, chicks with very soft shells get crushed easily, while chicks with extremely hard shells can’t hatch on their own.
What is stablizing selection?
Similarities in structures, early embryonic features, and DNA sequences between species all provide evidence that these organisms inherited traits from this.
What is a shared common ancestor?
A wolf joins a new pack, increasing the genetic diversity/variation by bringing new alleles to the population.
What is gene flow?
Species change over time, give rise to new species, and share a common ancestor.
What is descent with modification?