Chapter 2

Question 1

A group of organisms that a taxonomists judges to be a taxonomic unit, such as a species or order.

Answer 1

Taxon

Question 2

The science of describing, naming, and classifying species of living or fossil organisms.

Answer 2

Taxonomy

Question 3

The study of prehistoric life

Answer 3

Paleontology

Question 4

The permanent loss of a population or species, arising with the death or failure to breed of the last individuals

Answer 4

Extinction

Question 5

The idea that the natural laws observable around us now are also responsible for events in the past. one part of this view, for example, was the idea that the Earth had been shaped by the cumulative action of gradual processes like sediment deposition and erosion.

Answer 5

Uniformitarianism

Question 6

Traits are similar because they are inherited from a common ancestor

Answer 6

Homologous

Question 7

Traits are similar because they have converged on a shared form. they are not derived from a common ancestor.

Answer 7

Analogous

Question 8

A mechanism that can lead to evolution, whereby differential reproduction of individuals causes some genetic types to replaces (outcompete) others.

Answer 8

Natural Selection

Question 9

Inherited aspects of an individual that allow it to outcompete other members of a population that lack the trait (or that have a slightly different version of the trait). Adaptions are traits that have evolved through the machinist of natural selection.

Answer 9

Adaptions

Question 10

Arises when individuals of one sex (usually males) compete with each other over access to individuals of the other sex. it can lead to the evolution of traits like showy ornaments or weapons that improve an individuals chances of mating.

Answer 10

Sexual Selection

Question 11

A change in the frequency of traits or genetic variants that arise across generations due to random events. Drift is most pronounces in small populations.

Answer 11

Genetic Drift