10.1-10.4 Flashcards
Species
“a group of organisms so similar to one another that they can reproduce and have fertile offspring.”
Evolution
“the process of biological change by which descendants come to differ from their ancestors”
Fossils
“traces of organisms that existed in the past”
Catastrophism
“states that natural disasters such as floods and volcanic eruptions have happened often during Earth’s long history.”
Gradualism
“the changes he observed in landforms resulted from slow changes over a long period of time”
Uniformitarianism
“that the geologic processes that shape Earth are uniform through time”
Variation
“the difference in the physical traits of an individual from those of other individuals in the group to which it belongs.”
Adaptation
“feature that allows an organism to better survive in its environment.”
Artificial selection
“process by which humans change a species by breeding it for certain traits”
Heritability
“the ability of a trait to be passed down from one generation to the next.
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Natural selection
“mechanism by which individuals that have inherited beneficial adaptations produce more offspring on average than do other individuals.”
Population
“all the individuals of a species that live in an area.”
Fitness
“measure of the ability to survive and produce more offspring relative to other members of the population in a given environment.
Biogeography
“the study of the distribution of organisms around the world”
Homologous structures
“features that are similar in structure but appear in different organisms and have different functions. ”
