Charles Darwin joined the crew of this ship and set sail from England in 1831.
What is the H.M.S. Beagle?
100
In this process Nature provides all of the varieties and Man selects the variations that are found most useful.
What is artificial selection?
100
This type of scientist studies the fossil record and his findings help support the theory of evolution.
What is a paleontologist?
100
Mutations and gene shuffling as a result of sexual reproduction are the two main sources of this phenomena.
What is genetic variation?
100
Changes can lead to the formation of a new species.
What is speciation?
200
Charles Darwin made many observations and collected what would become evidence of Evolution on these islands west of Ecuador.
What are the Galapagos Islands?
200
Members of each species compete for food, territory, and mates.
What is the struggle for existence?
200
This phrase means "how are living things spread out over the world."
What is the geographic distribution of living species?
200
This is not a swimming pool filled with Levi's. This is a collection of all the genes that are present in a population.
What is a gene pool?
200
As new species evolve there are isolating mechanisms that prevent populations from making babies. If two populations can no longer produce fertile offspring, this has occurred.
What is reproductive isolation?
300
These preserved remains of ancient organisms show the history of life on Earth.
What is the fossil record or what are fossils?
300
The ability to survive and make babies.
What is fitness?
300
The prefix of this word means the same in Latin. Arms, legs, flippers, and wings are all built from the same basic bones.
What are homologous structures?
300
When we look at all the different alleles that occur in a gene pool we compare our findings to the other alleles for the same gene. This number is usually presented as a percentage.
What is relative frequency?
300
This type of isolation is the result of species acting differently. For example some song birds are physically capable of interbreeding but they do not because they have differences in courtship rituals such as different mating songs.
What is behavioral isolation?
400
In 1859 Charles Darwin published this controversial book concerning species diversity, natural selection and evolution.
What is On the Origin of Species?
400
Each living species has descended, with changes, from other species over time.
What is the principle of descent with modification?
400
These small useless body parts are a vestige of an ancient ancestor.
What are vestigial organs?
400
A one gene trait like a Widow's Peak or an attached ear lobe.
What is a single-gene trait?
400
Sometimes two populations can be separated by a physical barrier such as a river, ocean, mountain range, or canyon.
What is geographic isolation?
500
This French naturalist believed that acquired traits could be inherited. He thought that if someone worked out and got really buff then his offspring would inherit big muscles too.
Who was Jean-Baptiste Lamarck?
500
Over time this mechanism of evolution causes changes in the inherited characteristics of a population. These changes cause an increase in a species' fitness in its environment. This term is closely related to survival of the fittest.
What is natural selection?
500
By studying the early development of vertebrates, or animals with backbones we can see that homologous structures begin to develop in a very similar way.
What is the significance of embryology?
500
Some traits are controlled by two or more genes like height and skin color.
What are polygenic traits?
500
This is when similar species cannot reproduce because they mate at different times.