Charles Darwin
This scientist explained how species evolve through the process of natural selection.
Who is Charles Darwin?
True or False: Natural selection can lead to changes in traits over time by favoring traits that improve survival and reproduction over generations.
What is true?
What are beneficial traits passed down over generations called?
What are adaptations?
This term explains that only the "best" individuals survive and reproduce.
What is survival of the fittest?
This happens to traits that help organisms survive in their environment.
What is they increase over time?
Charles Darwin mainly studied this type of bird to help prove his theory.
What are finches?
Which of the following is NOT a factor in natural selection?
Random Chance Events
Genetic Variation
Environmental Pressures
Overpopulation
What are random chance events?
True or False: Better adapted organisms tend to survive and reproduce.
This is a term that explains when a species has more offspring than can survive.
What is overproduction or overpopulation?
This happens to traits that don't help organisms survive.
What is decrease over time?
Charles Darwin believed that evolution happened through a process in which nature selects for or against certain traits. This process is called...
What is a requirement for natural selection to occur?
What is a variation in traits from parents?
Which of these is an example of a behavioral adaptation?
What are bears hibernating during winter months?
These types of traits (like a scar or learned behavior) are not passed on to offspring through genetics.
Hint: Acquired Traits or Inherited Traits?
What are acquired traits?
In the 1800s, peppered moths in England were primarily light-colored with dark speckles. During the Industrial Revolution, as pollution darkened tree bark with soot, what happened to the moth population?
What is the percentage of dark-colored moths increased over generations as they were better camouflaged?
What did Charles Darwin notice about the finches on the different Galapagos Islands?
In a population of snowshoe hares, which scenario best demonstrates "survival of the fittest"?
Responses
What is the Hares with thicker white winter coats surviving to reproduce more often than those with thinner coats?
These types of adaptations involve physical features.
Structural adaptations or behavioral adaptations?
What are structural adaptations?
This provides different traits for natural selection to act upon. It is a result of meiosis.
Genetic...
What is genetic variation?
In a population of Galápagos finches, during a severe drought in 1977, what happened to the birds' beak sizes over time?
The birds changed their diet to avoid using their beaks
What is the average beak size increased because birds with larger beaks could crack open tough seeds from drought resistant plants better?
There were two main scientists that were studying how species changes over time. What is the name of the other scientist?
Hint: This person believed in evolution through acquired traits.
What is Lamarck?
When scientists examine the fossil record, they find the remains of different species in layers of rock of different ages.
What do they deduce from this?
What is life on Earth has changed over time?
These types of adaptations involve actions and behaviors of organisms.
Physical adaptations or behavioral adaptations?
What are behavioral adaptations?
Scientists think that chimpanzees and gorillas share a common ancestor. Today, it is not possible for a chimpanzee and gorilla to mate and produce fertile offspring.
What is this an example of?
What is Speciation?
There are several pieces of evidence that help to prove the theory of Evolution, name at least two pieces of evidence.
What are Fossils showing gradual changes in species over time, shared DNA between species, and vestigial structures?