Evolution Flashcards
What is biodiversity?
A measure of the number of species on the planet.
What defines species?
A group of organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring when homologous chromosomes can pair at meiosis.
What are the two most biodiverse areas on the planet?
Coral Reef and Tropical rainforest.
One example of the least biodiverse area on the planet
Desert
What is the general rule of diversity?
More diversity of plant life means more diversity in animal life.
What do fossil records show?
That most species are now extinct.
What does bottleneck mean?
Where a number of species drop followed by rapid diversification
Why does bottleneck happen?
species adapt to fill vacant niches
What does Darwins Finches prove?
Adaptive radiation
What is extinction
Loss of species, when species disappear.
How did Darwin prove adapted radiation
On Galapagos Islands, Darwin realised that all the finches had different shaped beaks. Darwin said that all 14 species evolved from one comment ancestor. And that all the finches were able to colonise as there were no interspecific competition by other birds and no intraspecific competition because there was plenty of food.
For speciation to occur (due to natural selection) what must there be?
- Variation brought by random mutations
- Overproduction of offspring
- Individuals must have a struggle for survival
What will happen to those individuals best suited for survival?
Pass on their genes and continue over many generations. leading to different groups forming from the original species.
What is adaptive radiation?
The emergence of several new species from a common ancestor introduced into an environment
What is evolution?
Evolution is the process by which new species are formed from pre-existing ones over a very long period of time.
What does taxonomy mean?
The scientific study of the diversity of living organisms.