Bio Ch 15 Flashcards
Extant
Still in existence
Evolution
Proposal that species arise, change, & become extinct due to natural forces
Vestigial structures
Anatomical structures that apparently functioned in an ancestor but have since lost most or all of their function in a descendant
Paleontology
Study of fossils
Strata
Different layers of sediment
Catastrophism
Idea that after catastrophes God created a new set of species to repopulate the world
Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics
Lamarck’s idea that the environment can produce physical changes in an organism during its lifetime that are inheritable
Uniformitarianism
Lyell’s theory that states the natural processes witnessed today are the same processes that occurred in the past
Biogeography
Study of the range and geographic distribution of life forms in different places throughout the world, as well as how and when they came to be distributed as they are today
Natural selection
Process based on the following observations: (1) organisms exhibit variation that can be passed from 1 generation to the next (have heritable variation); (2) organisms compete for available resources; (3) individuals within a population differ in terms of their reproductive success; & (4) organisms become adapted to conditions as the environment changes
Geometric ratio of increase
Overproduction potential of a species
Differential reproductive success
Ability to have more offspring
Fitness
Reproductive success of an individual relative to other members of a population
Adaptation
Any evolved trait that helps an organism be more suited to its environment
Artificial selection
Human-controlled breeding to increase the frequency of desired traits
Fossils
Remains & traces of past life or any other direct evidence of past life
Transitional fossils
Represent the intermediate evolutionary forms of life in transition from one type to another, or a common ancestor of these types
homologous
structures that are anatomically similar because they are inherited from a common ancestor
Analogous
structures that serve the same function but originated independently in different groups of organisms that do not share a common ancestor
Homeobox (Hox)
genes that orchestrate the development of the body plan in all animals, from invertebrates such as sea anemones and fruit flies to humans