Darwin's principles Flashcards
What is overproduction?
It explains that all species produce more offsprings than their environment can handle.
What is heritable variation?
It explains that each individual is unique and has a unique combination of genes.
What is competition?
Individuals with a same gene are in competition to see which alleles (gene combination) of a same gene are the most suited for the environment (are more likely to survive)
How about survivors?
They reproduce and can pass their genes to the next generation…
Is natural selection random?
No. It cannot be random because there would not be selection in that case. Rather, it relies on the fact that some individuals are more fit to the environment, which grants them an evolutionary advantage.
What is an evolutionary advantage?
It is a situation, which favors the reproduction of individuals having a certain combination of genes. The advantage has to do with reproduction.
Are all advantages evolutionary advantages? Give an example.
NO. Some are favoring some individuals, but they do not confer any advantage with regards to reproduction. If there is a gene that lowers the chances of heart attack, it is not necessarily an evolutionary advantage (i.e. natural selection) because the individuals that are more likely to have a heart attack will still have the time to reproduce.
Why would an advantage not be a case for natural selection?
If the advantage does not offer any reproductive advantage (i.e. a higher number of descendants on average), it cannot be considered as natural selection because it will not likely change the allele frequency. We thus need to favor something like mutation.
What is common descent?
It is a principle by which all living beings are related to each other because they come from a first organism. We are all different because of speciation/macroevolution.
