chapter 20 ~ evolution Flashcards
The process by which some individuals in a population experience changes in their DNA and pass those modified instructions to their offspring.
Biological evolution
The branch of biology that examines the form and variety of organisms in their natural environments.
Natural history
A belief that knowledge of god may be acquired through the study of natural phenomena.
Natural theology
The science of the classification of organisms into an ordered system that indicates natural relationships.
Taxonomy
The study of the geographical distributions of plants and animals.
Biogeography
The form or shape of an organism, or of a part of an organism.
Morphology
An anatomical feature of living organisms that no longer retains its ancestral function.
Vestigial structures
The remains or traces of an organism of past geologic age embedded and preserved in earths crust.
Fossils
The study of ancient organisms.
Paleobiology
The theory that earth has been affected by sudden, violent events that were sometimes worldwide in scope.
Catastrophism
The view that Earth and its living systems changed slowly over its history.
Gradualism
The concept that the geological processes that sculpted earth’s surface over long periods of time— such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, erosion, and the formation and movement of glaciers — are exactly the same as the processes observed today.
Uniformitarianism
Selective breeding of organisms to ensure that certain desirable traits appear at higher frequency in successive generations.
Artificial selection
The evolutionary process by which alleles that increase the likelihood of survival and the reproductive output of the individuals that carry them become more common in subsequent generations.
Natural selection
A genetically based characteristic, preserved by natural selection, that increases an organism’s likelihood of survival or its reproduction output.
Adaptive traits
A process whereby natural selection or genetic drift causes populations to become more different over time.
Evolutionary divergence
Biological evolution.
Descent with modification
The branch of science that studies the prevalence and variation in genes among populations of individuals.
Population genetics
A unified theory of evolution developed in the middle of the twentieth century.
Modern synthesis
Small-scale genetic changes within populations, often in response to shifting environmental circumstances or chance events.
Microevolution
Large-scale evolutionary patterns in the history of life, producing major changes in species and higher taxonomic groups.
Macroevolution
An evolutionary sequence of ancestral organisms and their descendants.
Biological lineages
The study of the geographical distributions of plants and animals in relation to their evolutionary history.
Historical biogeography
Analysis of the structure of living and extinct organisms.
Comparative morphology
