Cool Questions
A group of similar organisms that can mate with each other and produce offspring that can also mate and reproduce
species
The natural process by which something takes place
mechanism
The term for how well an organism can survive and reproduce in its environment
fitness
Scientists who contributed to the study of evolution
Darwin, Linnaeus, Lamarck, Lyell, Anning
The process where humans breed only individuals with desired traits in hopes that the next generation will inherit the trait
artificial selection
Most mutations have no effect on the individual organism: true or false?
True
The process by which modern organism have descended from ancient organisms
evolution
A 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
Causes of mutations
1. a dividing cell makes an error while copying DNA
2. an organism is exposed to environmental factors (such as radiation and certain chemicals)
The preserved remains or traces of an organism that lived in the past
fossils
Factors that affect natural selection
overproduction, variation, competition
This occurs when individuals with new alleles physically move from one population to another, and it can increase the genetic variation of a population
gene flow
A well-tested explanation for a wide rang of observations and experimental results
scientific theory
Any change to the genetic material
mutation
How gene flow affects a population's genetic variation
increases variation