Exam 1 Flashcards
Descent with Modification
Species that lived in the past are the ancestors of the species existing today and that descendant changes through time
Population thinking
Variation among individuals in a population is the key to understanding the nature of species(Darwin)
Fossil
Trace of an organism that lived in the past
Fossil record
Consist of all fossils that have been found
Extant
Species living today
Transitional feature
Trait in fossil species that is intermediate between those of older and younger species
Vestigial trait
Reduced or incompletely developed structure that has no function or reduced function
Phylogeny
Family tree of population or species
Homology
“Study of likeness” similarity that exists in species because they both inherited the trait from a common ancestor
Biological fitness
Ability of an individual to produce surviving offspring
Acclimation
Changes in individual phenotype that occur in response to changes in environment
Genetic correlation
Constraint caused by pleiotropy(single allele affects multiple traits)
Fitness trade-off
Compromise between traits in terms of how those traits perform in the environment
Mechanisms that shift allele frequencies
Natural selection
Genetic drift
Gene flow
Mutation
Gene pool
All gametes produced in a generation and combine at random to produce offspring