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Evolution
Chapter 10 vocab
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Evolution | Change in a species over time; process of biological change by which descendants come to differ from their ancestors |
| Species | Group of organisms so similar to one another that they can breed and produce fertile offspring |
| Fossils | Trace of an organism from the past |
| Catastrophism | Theory that states that natural disasters such as floods and volcanic eruptions shape earths landforms and caused extinction of some species |
| Gradualism | Principle that states that the changes in landforms result from slow changes over a long period of time |
| Uniformitarianism | Theory that states that the geologic processes that shape of earth are uniform through time |
| Variation | Differences in physical traits of an individual from the group to which it belongs |
| Charles Darwin | |
| Cuvier | |
| Lamarck | |
| Linnaeus | |
| Hutton | |
| Lyell | |
| Adaptation | Inherited trait that us selected for over time because it allows organisms to better survive in their environment |
| Artificial selection | Process by which humans modify a species by breeding it for certain traits |
| Heritability | Ability of a trait to be passed from one generation to the next |
| Natural selection | Mechanism by which individuals that have inherited beneficial adaptations produce more offspring on average than do other individuals |
| Fitness | |
| Population | |
| Overproduction | |
| Biogeography | |
| Homologous structure | |
| Analogous structure | |
| Vestigial structure | |
| Paleontology | |
| Buffon | |
| Erasmus Darwin |