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Chapter 15 Review
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Evolution | The development of new types of organisms over time |
| Natural selection | The process in which organisms change over time |
| Adaptation | A trait that makes an individual successful in its environment |
| Acquired trait | Does not pass down from parents to children |
| Inherited trait | Does pass down from parents to children |
| Homologous structure | An anatomical structure that occurs in different species and that originated by heredity in a structure in the most recent common ancestor of the species |
| Analogous structure | Has a closely related function but does not derive from the ancestral structure |
| Relative age | The age compared to other fossils by referring to the geologic time scale and to records of known fossils |
| Absolute age | The estimated time since formation of a rock using techniques such as radiometric dating |
| Divergent evolution | A process in which the descendants of a single ancestor diversify into species that each fit different parts of the environment |
| Convergent evolution | The process by which different species evolve similar traits |
| Artificial selection | Occurs when a human breeder chooses individuals that will parent the next generation |
| Natural selection | The process by which individuals that are better adapted to their environment survive and reproduce more successfully |
| Adaptive radiation | An evolutionary pattern in which many species evolve from a single ancestral species |
| Biological process of evolution | A change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms from one generation to the next, making them better adapt to their environment |
| Cuvier's catastrophism | French anatomist Cuvier promoted the idea that sudden geologic catastrophes caused the extinction of large groups of organisms at certain points in the past |
| Lyell's uniformitarianism | English geologist Lyell thought that the geologic processes that have changed the shape of the Earth's surface in the past continue to work in the same ways |
| The Galapagos Islands are home to 13 similar species of finches - each with beaks that have adapted for certain types of food | Darwin thought all the species descended from and diverged from just a few ancestral finches |
| The four main parts of Darwin's reasoning concerning natural selection are: | Overproduction, genetic variation, struggle to survive, and differential reproduction |
| Populations can be limited by things like: | Food supply, war, disease - These are all examples of ways environment can limit population |
| Adaptation | Changes in traits that |