Evolution and Natural Selection B5 Flashcards
What is meant by ‘the survival of the fittest’?
Organisms with beneficial mutations are more likely to survive and reproduce, therefore pass genes onto next generations.
What are mutations?
Mutations are a change in the DNA code. They could be beneficial or negatively impacting.
Who came up with the theory of evolution and natural selection?
Charles Darwin.
What is meant by natural selection?
The fittest individuals with the ideal characteristics were selected to survive and pass on the beneficial traits.
What is evolution?
Evolution is the process by which the inherited characteristics of a population change over time due to natural selection. In some cases this may result in the formation of a new species.
What evidence is there to prove evolution?
The fossil record gives us evidence of change over a long period of time however there are gaps in this record. Antibiotic resistance provides evidence for evolution, bacteria divide rapidly do evolution by natural selection can be seen in a very short period of time. A mutation may cause a bacterium to be resistant to an antibiotic.
Describe a series of events that might result in zebras evolving to run more quickly.
A mutation arises that allows some zebras to run faster than others. There is variation among the zebra population, some can run faster than others. Those zebras who run the fastest are most likely to survive and reproduce and pass on their advantageous alleles to offspring. This repeats over multiple generations and the advantageous allele spreads throughout the population until the species have ‘evolved’ to run faster.
