Basics
Change in a population over time.
What is evolution?
The survival and reproduction of the organisms that are best fit for their environment.
What is natural selection?
The selection of traits that improve an organism's ability to reproduce, but not necessarily make an organism better suited to its environment.
What is sexual selection?
The hip bones of a dolphin and the tailbone of a human are examples of _______ _______.
What are vestigial structures?
The ability of an organism to survive and reproduce in its environment.
What is fitness?
The 'father of evolution'.
Who is Charles Darwin?
A variation in an organism that helps it survive in its environment.
What is adaptation?
The movement of alleles from one population to another.
What is gene flow?
Features whose similar structures are evidence for common ancestry.
What are homologous structures?
Evolution toward similar characteristics in unrelated species.
What is convergent evolution?
The location in which Darwin had his greatest insights studying finches and tortoises.
What are the Galapagos Islands?
Random change in DNA sequence.
What is a mutation?
Change in allele frequency in a population due to chance.
What is genetic drift.
Body parts that share a common function but have a different structure.
What is are analogous structures?
A group of organisms that can reproduce and produce fertile offspring.
What is a species?
Differences in traits among members of a population. Necessary precursor for evolution.
What is variation?
When more offspring are produced than the environment can support. Leads to competition for resources.
What is overproduction?
When a small number of individuals colonize a new area and the gene pool is not representative of the original population.
What is the founder effect?
Strongest and most current evidence for relationships among organisms.
What is biomolecular comparison, DNA sequencing, or amino acid sequencing?
Requirement for speciation.
What is reproductive isolation?
How evolution is measured mathematically.
What is change in allele frequency.
Any factor that influences an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in a given environment. For example, competition for resources, predation, temperature, disease.
What are selective pressures or selective forces?
When a catastrophic event dramatically reduces the population without regard to fitness.
What is the bottleneck effect?
Method of determining the age of fossils that uses decay and half life.
What is radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating.
Theory that the Earth has largely been shaped by sudden, short-lived, violent events, possibly worldwide in scope.
What is catastrophism?