Chapter 16 Flashcards
Adaptation
Heritable characteristic that increases an organisms ability to survive and reproduce in it’s environment
Artificial selection
Selective breeding of plants and animals to promote desirable traits in the offspring
Fitness
How WELL an organism can survive and reproduce in it’s environment
Natural selection
Process by which organisms that are most suited to their environment survive and reproduce most successfully
Biogeography
Study of past and present distribution of organisms
Biodiversity
Total of the variety of organisms in the biosphere
Homologous structure
Structures that are similar in different species of common ancestry
Analogous structure
Body parts that share a common function but not structure
Vestigial structure
Structure that is inherited from ancestors but has lost much or all of it’s original function
What 3 patterns of biodiversity did Darwin note?
Globally
Locally
Overtime
Species vary globally
Bird called rhea living in South America that looks and acts like ostriches but they live in Africa; because that different yet ecologically similar animal species inhabited but ecologically similar habitats around globe
Species vary locally
Galápagos Islands have turtles and birds that are a different variety
; different yet related animal species often occupied different habitats within a local area
Species vary over time
Remains of fossils look like animals we have today ; Some fossils of extinct animals were similar to living species
Darwin
Natural selection
Malthus
Population growth
