Natural Selection Vocabulary Flashcards
Adaption
A charecteristic that improves an induviduals ability to survive and reproduce in a particular environment.
Species
A group of organisms that are closely related and can mate to produce fertile offspring.
Evolution
The process in which inherited characteristics within a population change over generations such that new species sometimes arise.
Fossil
The remains of physical evidence of an organism preserved by geological processes.
Fossil Record
A historical sequence of life indicated by fossils found in layers of the earth’s crust.
Trait
A genetically determined characteristic.
Selective Breeding
The human practice of breeding animals or plants that have certain desired characteristics.
Natural Selection
The process by which individuals that are better adapted to their environment survive and produce more successfully that less well adapted individuals do; a theory to explain that mechanism of evoulution.
Generation Time
The period between the birth of one generation and the birth of one generation and the birth of the next generation.
Speciation
The formation of new species as a result of evoulution.
relative dating
any method of determining whether an event or object is older or younger that other events or objects.
Absolute dating
any method of measuring the age of an object or event in years.
Geologic Time Scale
The standard method used to divide the Earths long natural history into manageable parts.
Extinct
Describes a species that has died out completely .
plate tectonics
The theory that explains how large pieces of the Earths outermost layer,called tectonic plates, move and change shape.
