Chapter 20 - Evolutionary Thought Flashcards
What is biogeography?
The study of the geographical distributions of plants and animals.
What is biological evolution?
Occurs in populations when specific processes cause the genomes of organisms to differ from those of their ancestors.
What is morphology?
The form or shape of an organism, or of a part of an organism.
What are vestigial structures?
An anatomical feature of living organisms that no longer retain its function.
What is catastrophism?
Cuvier’s theory that Earth has been affected by sudden, violent events that were sometimes worldwide in scope. Each layer of fossils represented the remains of organisms that had died in a local catastrophe. Different species then recolonized the area, and when another catastrophe struck, they formed a different set of fossils in the next, higher layer of rock.
What is Lamarck’s principle of use and disuse?
Body parts grow in proportion to how much they are used. Structures that are not often used get weaker and shrink.
What is Lamarck’s principle of inheritance of acquired characteristics?
The changes an animal acquires during its lifetime are inherited by its offspring.
What is Hutton’s theory of gradualism?
It’s the view that Earth and its living systems changed slowly over its history.
What is Lyell’s concept of uniformitarianism?
It’s the concept that the geological processes that sculpted Earth’s surface over long periods of time are exactly the same as the processes observed today.
What are adaptive traits?
The genetically based characteristics, preserved by natural selection, that increase an organism’s likelihood of survival or its reproductive output.
What is Darwin’s theory of evolution by means of natural selection?
1) Individuals within a population compete for limited resources.
2) Hereditary characteristics allow some individuals to survive longer and reproduce more than others.
3) A population’s characteristics change over time as advantageous heritable characteristics become more common.
Evolution occurs in groups, not individuals.
What is evolutionary divergence?
A process whereby natural selection or genetic drift causes populations to become more different over time.
What is descent with modification?
Biological evolution.
What is population genetics?
(Thomas Hunt Morgan) The branch of science that studies the prevalence and variation in genes among populations of individuals. Genetic variation is considered to be the raw material of evolution.
What are biological lineages?
Evolutionary sequences of ancestral organisms and their descendants.
