The Theory
Differences in traits between individual organisms
What is variation?
A graph that uses bars to show how characteristics or values are distributed within a group
What is a histogram?
Everything (living and nonliving) that surrounds an organism
What is the environment?
The theory that existing life forms have changed from earlier forms over long periods of time.
What is evolution?
A way of hiding by looking the same as the background
What is camouflage?
Organisms often have more ____________ than will survive.
What is offspring?
The number of individuals with each trait in a population
What is a distribution?
Any kind of inherited trait that improves an organism's chances of survival and reproduction in a given environment.
What is an adaptive trait?
The process by which the distribution of traits in a population changes over many generations
What is natural selection?
Bird ________ are adapted to match the food they eat.
What are beaks?
When organisms try to get their fair share of a limited amount of resources.
What is competition?
The number of bars in a histogram for a population with no variation
What is a single bar?
Finish this phrase: "Survival of the ____________:"
What is fittest?
A trait that makes it less likely that an individual will survive in a specific environment
what is a non-adaptive trait?
The process by which the distribution of traits in a population changes over many generations
What is natural selection?
A population has high __________ if the histogram has many bars
What is variation?
A random change to a gene that sometimes results in a new trait
What is mutation?
A group of genetically similar organisms that can mate and produce fertile offspring.
What is a species?
An organism produced as a result of reproduction
What is an offspring?
These random changes can create variation in a population that has no variation
What are mutations?
The height of a bar in a histogram shows the number of ____________ with a particular trait.
What are organisms?
When an organism has this trait, they will be more likely to survive.
What is an adaptive trait?
This is the molecule that passes traits from one generation to another.
What is DNA (or chromosomes)?