Chapter 16 - Evolution

Question 0

Comparative morphology

Answer 0

Study of body plans and structures among groups of organisms

Question 1

Biogeography

Answer 1

Study of patterns in the geographic distribution of species and communities

Question 2

Fossil

Answer 2

Physical evidence of an organism that lives in the ancient past

Question 3

Naturalis

Answer 3

Person who observed life from a scientific perspecfive

Question 4

Catastrophism

Answer 4

Now-abandoned hypothesis that catastrophic geological forces unlike those if the present day shaped Earth’s surface

Question 5

Evolution

Answer 5

Change in a line of descent

Question 6

Lineage

Answer 6

Line of descent

Question 7

Theory of uniformity

Answer 7

Idea that gradual repetitive processes occurring over long time spans shapes Earth’s surface.

Question 8

Adaptation (adaptive trait)

Answer 8

A heritable trait that enhances ab individual’s fitness in a particular enviornment

Question 9

Artificial selection

Answer 9

Process whereby humans choose traits they favor in a domestic species by selective breeding.

Question 10

Fitness

Answer 10

Degree of adaptation to an environment, as measured by an individual’s relative generic contributions to future generations.

Question 11

Natural selection

Answer 11

A process in which environmental pressures result in the differential survival and reproduction if individuals of a population who vary in the details of shared, heritable traits.

Question 12

Half-life

Answer 12

Characteristic time it takes for half a quantity of a radioisotope to decay

Question 13

Radiometric dating

Answer 13

Method estimating the age of a rock or fossil by measuring the content and proportions of a radioisotope and its daughter elements

Question 14

Gondwana

Answer 14

Supercontinent that existed before Pangea, more than 500 million years ago.

Question 15

Pangea

Answer 15

Supercontinent that formed about 200 million years ago

Question 16

Plate tectonica

Answer 16

Theory that Earth’s outer layer of rock is cracked into plates, the slow movement of which rafts continents to new locations over geological time.

Question 17

Geologic time scale

Answer 17

Chronology of earth’s history