Darwin
The name of the ship that took Darwin on a voyage to the Galapagos Islands.
What is the Beagle?
Darwin observed that most species produce more of these than the environment can possibly survive.
What are offspring?
This type of evidence from the past, often found in sedimentary rock, supports the idea that species change over time.
What is fossil evidence?
The combined genetic information of all members of a particular population.
What is gene pool?
The separation of populations by barriers such as rivers or mountains.
What is geographic isolation?
During Darwin's voyage on the Beagle, Darwin made many observations on these islands.
What are the Galapagos Islands?
The theory proposed by Charles Darwing that suggests species will change over time.
What is the theory of evolution?
Structures like the human arm and a bat wing are examples of these, showing common ancestry.
What are homologous structures?
When a farmer breeds only the best of his/her livestock.
What is artificial selection.
When individuals with the average form of a trait heve the highest fitness.
What is stabilizing selection?
The title of a revolutionary book published by Darwin in 1859.
What is On the Origin of Species ?
According to Darwin’s theory, individuals with traits better suited to their environment are more likely to do this.
What is survive and reproduce?
This explains why the number and location of bones found in fossil vertebrates are similar to those in living vertebrates.
What is common ancestry?
Genetic drift tends to occur in populations of this size.
What is small?
An example of this is how sharks, dolphins, and penguins all have analogous structures that enable them to move through water.
What is convergent evolution?
The word Darwin used to describe the ability of an organism to survive and reproduce in its environment.
What is fitness?
Reproductive isolation is necessary for this evolutionary process, where one species splits into two distinct species.
What is speciation?
An easily recognized fossil that is useful for dating and correlating the strata in which it is found.
What is index fossil?
A situation where a population of plants has some flowers that open midday and other flowers that open late in the evening.
What is temporal isolation?
A pattern of natural selection where larger, heavier beaks are favored after a period of severe drought.
What is directional selection?
This economist wrote about how human populations grow faster than resources, inspiring Darwin’s idea of the “struggle for existence.”
Who is Thomas Malthus?
Over many generations, helpful traits become more common in a population through this process.
What is natural selection?
This type of structure, like the human appendix or whale pelvis, no longer serves its original function but provides evidence of evolutionary change.
What is a vestigial structure?
The type of genetic drift that follows the colonization of a new habitat by a small group of individuals.
What is the founder effect?
The geologists who suggested that Earth is many millions of years old.
Who are Hutton and Lyell?