Chapter 8 Definitions

Question 1

What is the study of ancient life through the examination of fossils?

Answer 1

Palaeontology

Question 2

What is the idea that catastrophes such as floods, diseases, and droughts periodically destroyed species living in a particular region, allowing species from neighbouring regions to repopulate the area?

Answer 2

Catastrophism

Question 3

What is Charles Lyell’s theory (based on Hutton’s theory) that geological processes oersted at the same rates in the past as they do today

Answer 3

Uniformitarianism

Question 4

What is the idea that characteristics acquired during an organism’s lifetime can be passed on to its offspring?

Answer 4

Inheritance of acquired characteristics

Question 5

What is the theory explaining how life has changed, and continues to change, during Earths history?

Answer 5

Theory of evolution by natural selection

Question 6

What is the process of genetic change in a population over time?

Answer 6

Evolution

Question 7

What is the idea that the organisms leave the most offspring, so those organisms win the struggle for survival; phrase coined by John Spencer?

Answer 7

Survival of the fittest

Question 8

What is Darwin’s theory that natural selection does not demonstrate progress, but merely results from a species’ ability to survive local conditions at a specific time?

Answer 8

Descent with modification

Question 9

What is the remains and traces of past life that are found in sedimentary rock; it reveals the history of life on Earth and the kinds of organisms that were alive in the past?

Answer 9

Fossil record

Question 10

What is a fossil that shows intermediary links between groups of organisms and shares characteristics common to two now separate groups?

Answer 10

Transitional fossil

Question 11

What is a structure that is a reduced version of a structure that was functional in the organism’s ancestors?

Answer 11

Vestigial structure

Question 12

What is the study of the past and present geographical distribution of species populations?

Answer 12

Biogeography

Question 13

What are structures that have similar structural elements and origin but may have a different function?

Answer 13

Homologous structures

Question 14

What is structures of organisms that do not have an common evolutionary origin but perform similar functions?

Answer 14

Analogous structures

Question 15

What is the study of early, pre-birth stages of an organism’s development?

Answer 15

Embryology