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15-3 Vocab Cards
Question | Answer |
---|---|
What is a species? | a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another and produce fertile offspring |
What is artificial selection? | nature provided the variation and humans selected those variations that they found useful |
What is meant by "struggle for existence"? | that members of each species compete regularly to obtain food, living space, and other necessities of life |
How did Darwin use the term "fitness"? | the ability of an individual to survive and reproduce in its specific environment |
What is an adaptation to evolutionists? | any inherited characteristic that increases an organisms's chance of survival |
What is meant by survival of the fittest? | individuals that are better suited to their environment with adaptations that enables fitness--survive and reproduce most successfully |
What is natural selection? | the traits being selected--and therefore increasing over time--contribute to an organism's fitness in its environment. |
How does descent with modification work? | each living species has descended, with changes, from other species over time |
What is common descent as used in this chapter? | all species--living and extinct--were derived from common ancestors |
What is a homologous structure? | structures that have different mature forms but develop from the same embryonic tissues |
What is a vestigial organ? | the organs of many animals are so reduced in size that they are just vestiges, or traces, of homologous organs in other species |