Rock Layers
This law states that deeper rock layers are older than layers above them.
What is the Law of Superposition?
This term describes when a species no longer exists.
What is extinction?
This is change in a species over time.
What is evolution?
This refers to differences in traits within a population.
What is variation?
This diagram shows evolutionary relationships.
What is a phylogenetic tree?
If Fossil A is found below Fossil B, this fossil is older.
What is Fossil A?
The fossil record is incomplete because of this process.
What is decay / most organisms never fossilize?
Species that share traits likely share this.
What is a common ancestor?
Traits that improve survival become more common through this process.
What is natural selection?
A node on a phylogenetic tree represents this.
What is a common ancestor?
These fossils lived for a short time and help date rock layers.
What are index fossils?
Finding plant fossils in a desert suggests this about the past climate.
What is it used to be a wet environment?
Similar vertebrate embryos provide evidence of this.
What is common ancestry?
If birds switch from soft seeds to hard nuts, these birds survive best.
What are birds with larger/stronger beaks?
If a trait appears only in mammals, it would appear here on the tree.
What is at the node where mammals branch off?
If two organisms are never found in the same rock layers, scientists conclude this about them.
What is they did not live at the same time?
These structures in different species suggest common ancestry.
What are homologous structures?
If an embryo has a tail but the adult does not, this suggests what?
What is shared ancestry?
Bacteria become resistant to antibiotics because of this.
What is some bacteria naturally survive and reproduce?
If two species are located close together on a phylogenetic tree and share a recent node, this means what about their evolutionary relationship?
What is they share a more recent common ancestor and are more closely related?
Finding the same fossil species on different continents suggests this about Earth’s past.
What is the continents were once connected?
Fossils with feather impressions in dinosaurs support this evolutionary idea.
What is birds evolved from dinosaurs?
This is the main scientific explanation for how evolution happens.
What is natural selection?
If light fish survive near the surface and dark fish survive near the bottom, this will likely happen.
What is two populations form?
A phylogenetic tree shows this that a cladogram does not.
What is the amount of time between evolutionary events?