NATURAL SELECTION VOCAB
A physical or behavioral characteristic of an organism.
What is a trait?
The biological molecule that directly affects how a trait appears.
What is a protein?
The two environments where desert spiny lizards live.
What are sandy deserts and volcanic rock fields?
What determines whether a trait is beneficial, harmful, or neutral.
What is the environment?
In sandy deserts, which lizards were attacked more often?
What are dark-scaled lizards?
Preserved remains or traces of ancient life.
What are fossils?
A method that compares rock layers to determine older and younger.
What is relative dating?
Thick snail shells suggest what type of climate.
What is cold, low-water conditions?
A random change in DNA that creates variation.
What is a mutation?
DNA segments that contain instructions for making proteins.
What are genes?
The mutation that caused variation in the lizard population.
What is scale color (tan vs. dark)?
Before the volcanic eruption, dark scales were mostly _____.
What are harmful or neutral?
In volcanic rock environments, which lizards had higher survival?
What are dark-scaled lizards?
The type of rock fossils are most often found in.
What is sedimentary rock?
A method that uses radioactive elements to find age.
What is absolute dating?
Thin snail shells suggest what type of climate.
What is warm, high-water conditions?
A group of the same species living in the same area.
What is a population?
Put these in order: gene, mutation, trait, protein.
What is mutation → gene → protein → trait?
Which scale color increases survival in sandy deserts?
What is tan?
After the eruption, dark scales became _____.
What are beneficial?
What fewer attacks on lizard models suggests.
What is higher survival?
The process where sediments are laid down in layers.
What is deposition?
Which rock layers are oldest in undisturbed rock sequences.
What are the bottom layers?
What fossil traits can tell scientists about the past.
What is environmental conditions?
A trait that increases an organism’s chance of survival and reproduction.
What is a beneficial trait?
Why mutations are important to natural selection.
What is they create variation in populations?
Which scale color increases survival in volcanic rock environments?
What is dark brown?
Over many generations, what happens to beneficial traits in a population?
What is they become more common?
This type of evidence supports claims about natural selection.
What is data?
The process that removes rock and can destroy fossils.
What is erosion?
Why volcanic ash layers are useful for dating fossils.
What is they can be radiometrically dated?
Fossils found between 4.2 and 3.6 million-year-old ash layers are how old?
What is between 3.6 and 4.2 million years old?
A process where organisms with helpful traits survive and reproduce more often.
What is natural selection?
True or false: Mutations happen because organisms need to survive.
What is false?
Why birds of prey are an important factor in this study.
What is they hunt using sight?
Why natural selection affects populations, not individuals.
What is individuals do not change traits, populations change over generations?
Why scientists use models instead of real lizards.
What is to safely study predator behavior without harming animals?
Why the fossil record is incomplete.
What is not all organisms fossilize and erosion destroys remains?
Why fossils often have an age range instead of an exact age.
What is fossils cannot be dated directly?
This reasoning explains how fossil evidence supports climate claims.
What is Claim–Evidence–Reasoning (CER)?