Natural Selection
This naturalist from the mid-19th century spent decades compiling research from, among other places, the Galápagos Islands to support his idea of evolution by natural selection, or "survival of the fittest."
Who is Charles Darwin?
This category of mechanisms of evolution is also known as "random change."
What is genetic drift?
TRUE OR FALSE: All species at the top of the cladogram are the most recent organisms.
What is true?
If two individuals from different populations are separated by geographic barriers, they are experiencing (PREZYGOTIC OR POSTZYGOTIC) isolation.
What is prezygotic isolation?
This is our most basic definition of evolution.
What is change over time?
TRUE OR FALSE: Natural selection does not mean the same thing as evolution.
What is true?
When a natural disaster wipes out a random portion of a population, this mechanism of evolution has occurred.
What is bottleneck effect?
One of the first steps while constructing a cladogram is to identify this, the most distantly related organism within the species of interest.
Mules are an example of this type of isolation.
What is postzygotic isolation?
TRUE OR FALSE: A dramatic environmental change will always lead to the formation of new species.
What is false?
Inspired by economist Thomas Malthus, Darwin theorized this key component of natural selection, the idea that organisms tend to produce more offspring than can possibly survive or be supported by an ecosystem because of lack of resources like food, shelter, and mates.
What is the struggle for existence?
If a population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, it will not evolve. List one Hardy-Weinberg principle.
What are: (1) random mating, (2) no natural selection, (3) no mutations, (4) no movement into or out of the population, (5) large population?
What is parsimony?
In order for a population to develop into distinct species, this, or the sum total of all alleles within a population, must become different enough between the two populations so that they can no longer reproduce.
What is a gene pool?
Dog breeds and grocery store vegetables like broccoli, kale, cauliflower, and cabbage are an example of this mechanism of evolution.
What is artificial selection?
Natural selection will only act on a population if there is a certain degree of this, or phenotypic differences among individuals, which also allows a species or population to survive environmental changes.
What is genetic variety / variation / diversity?
These are the three types of selection that can change the allele frequencies in a population.
What are disruptive, stabilizing, and directional selection?
These organisms are represented by the nodes, or intersections, connecting each branch on a cladogram.
What are the most recent common ancestors?
This is how we define a species.
What is two populations that cannot reproduce and create fertile, viable offspring?
The high stepping routines of blue-footed boobies are an example of this type of prezygotic isolation.
What is behavioral isolation?
This type of evolutionary change was experienced by the peppered moth when humans caused the production of soot that covered their environment.
What is natural selection?
If a population experiences a change in the frequency of these, the different versions of a trait, within the population's gene pool, that population is evolving.
What are alleles?
If an organism's ancestor is higher up on the cladogram, it is (MORE OR LESS) recent than ancestors lower on the cladogram.
What is more recent?
These are the six types of prezygotic isolation.
What are geographic, ecological, behavioral, mechanical, gametic, and temporal?
TRUE OR FALSE: Humans represent the end of the evolutionary tree, as we are the most complex and successful species on Earth.
What is false?