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Ch. 15 Study Stack
Definition
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Evolution | The development of new types of organisms from preexisting types of organisms over time |
| Strata | Layers of rock |
| Natural Selection | The process by which individuals that are better adapted to their environment survive and reproduce more successfully than less well adapted individuals do; a theory to explain the mechanism of evolution |
| Adaptation | A trait that makes an individual successful in its environment |
| Fitness | A measure of an individual's hereditary contribution to the next generation |
| Fossil | The remains or traces of an organism that died long ago |
| Superposition | This principle states that if the rock stratum at a location have not been disturbed, the lowest stratum was formed before the strata above it |
| Relative Age | The age of an object in relation to the ages of other objects |
| Absolute Age | The numeric age of an object or event, often stated in years before the present, as established by an absolute-dating process, such as radiometric dating |
| Biogeography | The study of the geographical distribution of living organisms and fossils on Earth |
| Homologous Structure | Anatomical structures that share a common ancestry |
| Vestigial Structure | A structure in an organism that is reduced in size and function and that may have been complete and functional in the organism's ancestors |
| Analogous Structure | In comparisons of different organisms, describes features that are similar in function and appearance but not in structure or origin |
| Phylogeny | The evolutionary history of a species or taxonomic group |
| Convergent Evolution | The process by which unrelated species become more similar as they adapt to the same kind of environment |
| Divergent Evolution | The process by which two or more related but reproductively isolated populations become more and more dissimilar |
| Adaptive Radiation | An evolutionary pattern in which many species evolve from a single ancestral species |
| Artificial Selection | The selective breeding of organisms (by humans) for specific desirable characteristics |
| Coevolution | The evolution of two or more species that is due to mutual influence, often in a way that makes the relationship more mutually beneficial |
Created by:
neubeckerm17
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