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Bio.Vocab. Evolution
Question | Answer |
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Spontaneous Generation | An eaerly and now disproved theory that living organisms come to life spontaneously from nonliving material |
Radiometric Dating | A method of determining the absolute age of an object by comparing the relative percentages of a radioactive isotope and a stable isotope |
Radioactive Isotope | An isotope that has an unstable nucleus and that emits radiation |
Half life | The time required for half of a sample of a radioactive isotope to break down by radioactive decay to form a daughter isotope |
Endosymbiosis | A mutually beneficial relationship in which one organism lives within another |
Evolution | A heritable change in the characteristics within a population from one generation to the next |
Natural Selection | The process by which individuals that're better adapted to their environment survive and reproduce more successfully than less well adapted individuals do |
Adaptation | The process of becoming adapted to an environment |
Fitness | A measure of an individual's heredity contribution to the next generation |
Superposition | A principle that states that younger rocks lie above older rocks if the layers haven't been disturbed |
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 |
Coevolution | The evolution of two or more species that's due to mutual influence, often in a way that makes the relationship more mutually beneficial |
Divergent Evolution | The process by which two or more related but reproductively populations become more and more dissimilar` |
Artificial Selection | The selective breeding of organisms for specific desirable characteristics |
Immigration | The movement of an individual or group into an area |
Emigration | The movement if an individual or group out of an area |
Sexual Selection | An evolutionary mechanism by which traits that increase the ability of individuals to attract or acquire mates appear with increasing frequency in a population |
Stabilizing Selection | A type of natural selection in which the average form of a trait is favored and becomes more common |
Disruptive Selection | A type of natural selection in which two extreme forms of a trait are selected |
Directional Selection | A type of natural selection in which the most extreme form of a trait is forvored and becomes more common |
Speciation | The formation of new species as a result of evolution |
Reproductive Isolution | The inability of members of a population to successfully interbreed with members of another population of the same or a related species |
Geographic Isolation | The physical separation of populations due to geographic barriers that prevent interbredding |
Homologous Structures | Anatomical structures in one species that, compared to other anatomical structures in another species, originated from a single anatomical structure in a common ancestor of the two species |
Analogous Structure | An anatomical structure in one species that's similar in function and appearance, but did not in evolutionary origin, to another anatomical structure in another species |