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Charles Darwin
Darwin's Influences
Evidence
Survival of the Fittest
Speciation
100
Charles Darwin's profession which is the study of organisms including plants or animals in their environment, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study.
What is a Naturalist?
100
One of the most renowned biologists of the nineteenth century who shares credit with Charles Darwin for developing the theory of evolution by natural selection.
Who is Alfred Wallace?
100
Darwin observed this characteristic among finches on the Galapagos islands which led him to his idea about the transmutation of species?
What are variations among beaks?
100
The automatic competition between members of a natural population for limited vital resources (such as food, space, or light) that results in natural selection.
What is the struggle for existence?
100
A group of individuals that actually or potentially interbreed in nature.
What is a species?
200
The name of the survey ship which carried Charles Darwin on a scientific voyage to South America.
What is the HMS Beagle?
200
He argued for a very different view of evolution than Darwin's in which he believed that simple life forms continually came into existence from dead matter and continually became more complex -- and more "perfect" -- as they transformed into new species.
Who is Jean-Baptiste Lamarck?
200
Darwin observed this characteristic among the tortoises on the Galapagos islands which led him to his theory of evolution?
What are shell size and shape variation?
200
The concept central to natural selection. In broad terms, individuals that have better potential for survival. Modern evolutionary theory defines it not by how long an organism lives, but by how successful it is at reproducing. If an organism lives half as long as others of its species, but has twice as many offspring surviving to adulthood, its genes will become more common in the adult population of the next generation.
What is fitness?
200
What was once a continuous population is divided into two or more smaller populations. This can occur when rivers change course, mountains rise, continents drift, or organisms migrate. The barrier isn't necessarily a physical barrier that separates two or more groups of organisms — it might just be unfavorable habitat between the two populations that keeps them from mating with one another.
What is geographic isolation?
300
The islands where Charles Darwin observed adaptations among beaks of different species of finches for obtaining food in a multitude of ways.
What are the Galapagos Islands?
300
He believed that geological forces at work in the present day—barely noticeable to the human eye, yet immense in their impact—are the same as those that operated in the past. Meaning that the rates at which processes such as erosion or sedimentation occur today are similar to past rates; making it possible to estimate the times it took to deposit sandstone, for example, of a given thickness. It became evident from such analysis that enormous lengths of time were required to account for the thicknesses of exposed rock layers.
Who is James Hutton?
300
Mineralogical evidence of life, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in rock formations and sedimentary layers.
What is the fossil record?
300
This helps organisms survive in their ecological niches. These traits may be structural, behavioral or physiological. Physical features of an organism are shape, body covering, armament; and also the internal organization. Behavioral features are composed of inherited behavior chains and/or the ability to learn: behaviors may be inherited in detail (instincts), or a tendency for learning may be inherited (see neuropsychology). Physiological features permit the organism to perform special functions (for instance, making venom, secreting slime, phototropism); but also more general functions such as growth and development, temperature regulation, ionic balance and other aspects of homeostasis.
What is adaptation?
300
When species have their own courtship displays or breeding season, so that members of the two species do not have the opportunity to interbreed. Or, the two species may be unable to interbreed successfully because of failure of the egg to become fertilized or to develop.
What is reproductive isolation?
400
Darwin theory which established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.
What is the theory of evolution?
400
Charles Darwin read, and was much influenced by his book "Principles of Geology" while aboard HMS Beagle. The main point of the book was that evidence of the forces of geological change that have been shaping Earth for millennia is observable today. The temple columns, with their high-water marks and evidence of marine encrustation, showed that the sea levels had changed several times, and so gradually that the monument was undisturbed.
Who is Charles Lyell?
400
Structures evolved from some structure in a common ancestor; for example, the wings of bats and the arms of primates.
What are homologous structures?
400
Random mutations that occur when genes are copied (there are other processes that cause variation too, but we'll talk only about mutation to keep it simple). These random mutations lead the genomes of the parent and the offspring being slightly different from each other instead of exact copies (taller or shorter, fatter or skinnier, more or less red). Natural selection is when some organisms will happen to get 'good' beneficial mutations and others will happen to get 'bad' detrimental mutations, just by chance (and some won't be good or bad, they're neutral). Natural selection is when the ones with the 'good' mutations do better at surviving than the ones with 'bad' or neutral mutations, so they survive longer and reproduce more, and pass those 'good' mutations down to their offspring. But, in passing it down, there's a bit of variation again and the whole process starts over for the next generation, and so on and so on.
What is natural variation?
400
This states that both allele and genotype frequencies in a population remain constant—that is, they are in equilibrium—from generation to generation unless specific disturbing influences are introduced.
What is the Hardy-Weinberg Principle?
500
This book, written by Charles Darwin, was published on the 24th of November in 1859 and is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology.
What is "On the Origin of Species"?
500
In opposition to the utopian thinkers of the day, he believed that unless people exercised restraint in the number of children they had, the inevitable shortfall of food in the face of spiraling population growth would doom mankind to a ceaseless struggle for existence. Out of that unforgiving battle, some would survive and many would not, as famine, disease, and war put a ceiling on the growth in population. These ideas galvanized Darwin's thinking about the struggles for survival in the wild, where restraint is unknown. Before this, Darwin had thought that living things reproduced just enough individuals to keep populations stable. But now he came to realize that, as in human society, populations bred beyond their means, leaving survivors and losers in the effort to exist.
Who is Thomas Malthus?
500
Genetically determined structures or attributes that have apparently lost most or all of their ancestral function in a given species.
What are vestigial organs?
500
The gradual, non-random process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers.
What is natural selection?
500
Conditions under which the Hardy-Weinber principle does not hold true?
What is non-random mating, mutations, selection, random genetic drift, gene flow, and meiotic drive.