Cladistics: Definition of Terms

Question 1

Metabolic

Answer 1

all cemical reactions

• stuff being broken down
• stuff being made up

Question 2

Living things are systems that

Answer 2

• carry out metabolic processes to
• maintain homeostatsis and to
• reproduce faithful copies of themsekves that can do the same

Question 3

Amnitoic Egg

Answer 3

inculdes several membrances, the amnion, chorion, and allantois

Question 4

Clade

Answer 4

a group of organisms including their common ancestor and all descedents that have evolved from that common ancestor

Question 5

Cladistics

Answer 5

a system of classification based on shared derived characters that arranges organisms only by their brancing in a evolutionary tree

Question 6

Cladogram

Answer 6

a tree-shaped diagram used to illustrate evolutionary relationships among species by analyzing certain kinds of characters, or physical features, in the orgainsms

Question 7

Characters

Answer 7

physical features shared by a group of organisms

Question 8

Common Ancestor

Answer 8

an organism from whom other organisms are directly decended

Question 9

Evolution

Answer 9

• biological evolution is descent with modification
• it includes btoh small-scale evolution (the cumulative changes that occur in a population over time) and large-scale evolution (the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations)

Question 10

Internode

Answer 10

a line connnecting at least two speciation events that represents at least one ancestral species

Question 11

Node

Answer 11

the branching point on a cladogram representing a speciation event

Question 12

Outgroup

Answer 12

a group of organisms outside the group being studied that is used to determine which of studied groups’ characters is ancestral and which is derived

Question 13

Tetrapod

Answer 13

vertebrate animals having four limbs or limb-like appendages

Question 14

Transitional Form

Answer 14

fossils or organisms that show the transformation from an ancestral form to descendant species’ form

Question 15

Vertebrae

Answer 15

the individual bones that make up the spinal column