Chapter 19 Flashcards
Inherited characteristic of an organism that enhances its survival and reproduction in a specific environment
Adaptation
Having characteristics that are similar because of convergent evolution, not pomology
Analogous
The selective breeding of domesticated plants and animals to encourage the occurrence of desirable traits
Artificial selection
The scientific study of the past and present geographic distributions of species
Biogeography
The evolution of similar features in independent evolutionary lineages
Convergent evolution
Referring to a species that is confined to a specific geographic area
Endemic
Descent with modification; the idea that living species are descendants of ancestral species that were different from the present day ones; also defined more narrowly as the change in the genetic composition of a population from generation to generation
Evolution
A preserved remnant or impression of an organism that lived in the past
Fossil
Structures in different species that are similar of common ancestry
Homologous structures
Similarity in characteristics resulting from a shared ancestry
Homology
A process in which individuals that have certain inherited traits tend to survive and reproduce at higher rates than other individuals because of those traits
Natural selection
The scientific study of fossils
Paleontology
The supercontinent that formed near the end of the Paleozoic era, when plate movements brought all the landmasses of Earth together
Pangaea
A rock layer formed when new layers of sediment cover older ones and compress them
Stratum
A feature of an organism that is a historical remnant of a structure that served a function in the organism’s ancestors
Vestigial structure
