FR Chap 14&15 Evolution

Question 1

Define Evolution

Answer 1

generation-to-generation change in the proportion of different inherited genes in a population that accounts for all of the changes that have transformed live over an immense time.

Question 2

What was “Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics”? Who’s theory was it?

Answer 2

Lamarck proposed that by using or not using certain body parts, an organism develops certain characteristics. He thought that these enhanced characteristics would be passed on to the offspring. Lamarck called this idea “inheritance of acquired characteristics”.

Question 3

Descent with modification

Answer 3

Accumulating different modifications, or adaptations, to diverse ways of life.

Question 4

Natural selection

Answer 4

is the process by which individuals with inherited characteristics well-suited to the environment leave more offspring on average than do other individuals.

Question 5

Homologous Structures (example?)

Answer 5

Similar structures in species sharing a common ancestor are called homologous structures. Forelimbs of different mammals are variations on a common structural theme–one that has become adapted to different functions.

Question 6

Vestigial Structures (example?)

Answer 6

Vestigial structures are remnants of structures that may have had important functions in an ancestral species, but have no clean function in some of the modern descendants. The whales of today lack hind limbs, but some have small vestigial hipbones probably derived from their four-footed ancestors.