Chapter 6 Organic Evolution Flashcards
Five components of evolutionary change
Perpetual change Common descent Multiplication of species Gradualism Natural selection
Presented the first credible explanation of evolutionary change
Charles Robert Darwin
The theory that the living world is neither constant nor perpetually cycling but is steadily undergoing irreversible change
Perpetual change
All organisms descend from a common ancestor through a branching of genealogical lineages
Common descent
Large phenotypic differences between species are produced by accumulation through evolutionary time of many individually small changes
Gradualism
Guiding force of evolution
Natural selection
The ultimate source of all new variation on which selection acts
Mutation
Showed that the hereditary process itself does not change the genetic compositions of populations
Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium
Comprises studies of evolutionary change on a geological timescale
Macroevolution
Comprises studies of genetic change within contemporary populations
Microevolution
