Natural Selection
What is offspring?
A trait that helps an organism survive and reproduce in its environment.
What is an adaptation?
The father of evolution
Who is Charles Darwin?
A community of living organisms interacting with their environment.
What is an ecosystem?
What is evolution?
Differences in a trait in a population
What is variation?
physical traits that help animals survive
What is a physical adaptation?
The title of Charles Darwin's book
What is "On Origin of Species'
Changes to Earth’s climate (including weather, storms, temperature, rainfall amounts) caused by an increase in heat-trapping greenhouse gasses.
What is climate change?
The mechanism for evolution proposed by Charles Darwin
What is natural selection?
Resources like space, water, and food are limited, individuals compete for the resources they need to survive.
What is competition?
Herding, hunting, hibernation, migration are examples of this
What is behavioral adaptation?
The islands where Darwin studied natural selection.
What is the Galapagos islands?
The process of all individuals in a species dying out without new ones being born.
What is extinction?
True or False: Individual organisms evolve.
Explain your answer.
False. Populations evolve not individuals.
The 4 steps of natural selection
What is Variation, Overproduction, Competition, and Differential Survival and Reproduction?
A plant with waxy coatings and fleshy stems and leaves that store water are found in this environment
What is a desert (hot, arid/dry climate)?
The ship Darwin sailed on during his voyage to the Galapagos.
What is the HMS Beagle?
Gases in the atmosphere that trap heat and warm the Earth
What are greenhouse gases?
Explain how pollution in the environment caused natural selection in peppered moths in 1800s England.
During the Industrial Revolution in 1800s England, pollution from factories darkened tree bark by killing light-colored lichens. This environmental change made light-colored peppered moths more visible to predators, while dark-colored moths became better camouflaged. As a result, birds ate more light-colored moths, and the darker ones survived and reproduced more. Over time, the dark-colored moths became more common in polluted areas.
How well an individual animal can survive and reproduce in its environment
What is fitness?
An animal with thick fur and blubber (fat) for insulation lives in this ecosystem.
What is a tundra/artic/cold ecosystem?
Why did the finches have different beaks on each Galapagos island?
The finches on the Galápagos Islands have different beak shapes and sizes on each island because they adapted to different food sources available in their specific environments. Birds with beak shapes best suited to the available food were more likely to survive and reproduce.
How can changes in one species affect an entire ecosystem?
Changes can disrupt food chains and impact other species and their habitats.
There is a population of rabbits. There are dark brown rabbits and white rabbits. The climate becomes significantly colder over several decades and the environment is constantly covered in snow. How will the population of rabbits be impacted by natural selection?
As the climate becomes significantly colder and the environment becomes permanently snow-covered, the white rabbits are more likely to survive and reproduce than the dark brown rabbits. This is because their white fur provides better camouflage in the snowy environment, helping them avoid predators.Dark brown rabbits, which stand out against the white snow, are more easily spotted and eaten by predators. As a result, fewer dark brown rabbits survive to reproduce, and over time, more white rabbits pass on their genes to the next generation.Through natural selection, the population evolves. After many generations, the rabbit population will likely consist mostly—or entirely—of white rabbits, as this trait provides a survival advantage in the snowy environment.