A trait that helps an organism survive and reproduce.
What is an adaptation?
100
Similar structures with different functions that related species have inherited from a common ancestor.
What are homologous structures?
100
Preserved remains or traces of ancient organisms
What is a fossil?
100
State during evolutionary equilibrium that is interrupted by brief periods of more rapid change
What is punctuated equilibrium?
200
The process by which individuals that are better adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce than other members of the same species.
What is natural selection?
200
Type of selection in which nature provides the variations, but humans select those they find useful
What is artificial selection?
200
Body parts that share common functions, but not common structures
What is a analagous structures?
200
Allows paleontologists to determine whether a fossil is older or younger than other fossils
What is relative dating?
200
Term that describes how well an organism can survive and reproduce in its environment
What is fitness?
300
Differences between individuals of the same species.
What are genetic variations?
300
Darwin compared the organisms on the mainland of South America to those found on this island chain.
What are the Galapagos Islands?
300
Natural selection is often called this - Ex: an antelope that is eaten by a lion.
What is "survival of the fittest"?
300
This type of fossil is used to establish and compare the relative ages of rock layers and the fossils they contain
What is an index fossil?
300
You encounter a group of organisms living in the woods that reproduce and have fertile offspring. What term describes this group?
Species
400
A scientific theory of biological evolution that explains how modern organisms change over long periods of time through descent from common ancestors
What is evolution?
400
A diagram that shows how scientists think different groups of organisms are related.
What is a cladogram?
400
Structures that are inherited from ancestors, but have lost most of their original function
What are vestigial structures?
400
Why have so few organisms been fossilized?
Soft body structures do not fossilize, decay quickly and often attract predators when deceased. Wood, shells, bones and teeth are great sources of fossils.
400
Theory that proposes that evolution occurs slowly but steadily.
What is gradualism?
500
Name the 4 scientists that also contributed to the Theory of Evolution.
Lamarck, Malthus, Hutton & Lyell
500
State 2 factors that produce variations in a species.
What are mutations and the shuffling of alleles during meiosis?
500
State 4 types of evidence that support the theory of evolution.
What are fossils, patterns of early development, similar body structures, and DNA?
500
Name 3 things a fossil tells a paleontologist about an organism.
structure/anatomy, environment they lived in, ways they lived, age
500
All the genes, including all the different alleles for each gene, that are present in a population at any one time