Chapter 15: Processes of Evolution Flashcards
What is evolutionary theory?
It is a bundle of theories
Who was Jean Baptiste Lamark?
He was an evolutionary biologist that studied the evolution giraffes neck.
Charles Darwin was the first of what?
He was the first one to articulate a plausible mechanism for evolution that was derived from different fields of study.
What is Thomas Robert Malthus known for?
Population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food
supply is linear. Only a fraction of any population will
survive and reproduce.
Uniformitarianism Theory
is the assumption that the same natural laws and processes that operate in our present-day scientific observations have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe
What did Darwin do in 1831?
He began a 5-year voyage around the world on a
Navy survey vessel, the HMS Beagle.
What did Charles Darwin discover during his five-year journey?
The finches beaks were all different from each other and had different functions
What are the three thories Darwin made up?
- Species change over time due to environmental changes
- Divergent species share a common ancestor
- The mechanism that produces change in natural selection (testable)
What is the essence of Darwin’s natural selection theory?
- Heritability (it has to be passed on)
- Variation is needed to evolve
- competition for survival of species
Why is natural selection so important?
It is the first evolutionary theory that could be tested
What does the evolutionary term “Fitness” refer to?
It refers to the individual’s ability to leave an offspring and allows the individual to survive and reproduce
What is evolutionary fitness?
It is the number of offspring plus the number of future descendants
Indirect fitness/inclusive fitness
An indirect way for an organism to pass on their genes from a sibling who has an offspring
What is adaptation in terms of evolution?
The adjustment or changes in behavior, physiology, and structure of an organism to become more suited to an environment.
What are the two simple rules of Natural Selection?
- Evolution doesn’t have to be elegant, it just has to work
2. evolved organisms can have defects as long as they can still survive and reproduce
What is modern synthesis?
describes the fusion (merger) of Mendelian genetics with Darwinian evolution that resulted in a unified theory of evolution
Population
a group of individuals of a single species that live and interbreed in a particular geographic area at the same ti time
Mutations
- Occur randomly
2. Can be deleterious, beneficial, or neutral (have no effect)