Question | Answer |
biogeography | study of patterns in the geographic distribution of species and communities |
comparative morphology | the scientific study of similarities and differences in body parts |
fossil | physical evidence of an organism that lived in the ancient past |
catastrophism | now-abandoned hypothesis that catastrophic geologic forces unlike those of the present day shaped Earth's surface |
evolution | change in a line of descent |
lineage | line of descent |
theory of uniformity | idea that gradual repetitive processes occurring over long time spans shaped Earth's surfaces |
His idea became known as catastrophism | Cuvier |
His idea was that a species gradually improved over generations because of an inherent drive toward perfection, up the chain of being. | Lamarck |
Associated with the theory of uniformity | Lyell |
the economist studying human population growth | Malthus |
wrote "An essay on the principle of evolution" | Malthus |
what led naturalists to question traditional ways of interpreting the natural world | biogeography, comparative morphology, and geology |
what led naturalists to propose that Earth and the species on it had changed over time | fossils and other evidence |
what made naturalists begin to reconsider the age of the earth | fossils and other evidence and the change over time |
what changed Darwin's ideas about how evolution occurs | his observations of nature during a 5 year voyage around the world |
Who correlated increases in the size of human populations with episodes of famine, disease and war? | Thomas Malthus |
adaptation (adaptive trait) | a form of a heritable trait that enhances an individual's fitness in a particular environment. |
fitness | degree of adaptation to an environment, as measured by an individual's relative genetic contribution to future generations. |
natural selection | differential survival and reproduction of individuals of a population based on differences in shared, heritable traits. |
what process drives evolutionary change | natural selection |
traits favored in a particular environment are what? | adaptive |
what was recognized as stone-hard evidence of earlier forms of life | fossils |
trace fossils (such as footprints, impressions, nests etc) are evidence of what | an organism's activity |
most fossils are found in layers of what? | sedimentary rock |
the fossil record will never be complete because why | fossils are relatively rare |
reveals the age of rocks and fossils | radiometric dating |
the predictability of a radioactive decay can be used to find the age of what? | rock layers and fossils (i.e. volcano) |
half-life | characteristic time it takes for half of a quantity of a radioisotope to decay |
radiometric dating | method of estimating the age of a rock or a fossil based on the predictability of radioactive decay |
what helps biologists retrace changes in ancient lineages? | radiometric dating |
over billions of years, movements of Earth's outer layer of rock have changed what? | the land, atmosphere, and oceans |
all continents that exist today were once part of one huge supercontinent that split into fragments and drifted apart | pangea |
continental drift | the idea that continents move around |
supercontinent that existed before pangea, more than 500 millions years ago | Gondwana |
supercontinent that formed about 270 million years ago | Pangea |
theory that Earth's outer layer of rock is cracked into plates, the slow movement of which conveys continents to new locations over geologic time | plate tectonics theory |
explains how continents move | plate tectonics theory |
chronology of Earth's history | geologic time scale |
the bones of a bird's wing are similar to the bones in a bat's wing. This observation is an example of what? | comparative morphology |
evolution is a change in _______ and can occur by _________. | a line of descent; natural selection |
a trait is adaptive if it what? | increases fitness |
in what type of rock are you most likely to find a fossil? | limestone, composed of sedimented calcium carbonate |
the dinosaurs died out how many millions of years ago? | 66 |
on the geologic time scale, life originated in the what? | archean |
fitness | measured by reproductive success |
fossils | evidence of life in distant past |
natural selection | survival of the fittest |
half-life | characteristic of a radioisotope |
catastrophism | geologic change occurs in unusual major events |
uniformtiy | geologic changes occurs continuously |
forces that cause geologic change include what? | erosion, volcanic activity, tectonic plate movement, wind and meteorite impacts |
what is the age of the earth? | 4.6 bya |
first life | 3.8 bya (prokaryotic) |
up to 541 mya | precambrian |
since 541 mya | phanerozoic |
what are the 3 major eras of the phanerozoic? | paleozoic, mesozoic, cenozoic |
what is the approximate time frame for the paleozoic? | 541-251 mya |
what is the approximate time frame for the mesozoic? | 251-65 mya |
what is the approximate time frame for the cenozoic? | 65 mya-present |
what time frame had major adaptive radiation of marine animals during the cambrian period, the first fishes , amphibians, and reptiles and plants, and the invasion of land by plants, fungi and animals? | paleozoic |
what time frame had the first mammals, birds and flowering plants, it's the age of reptiles (dinosaurs) and is 65 mya-the extinction of dinosaurs? | mesozoic |
what time frame is the age of mammals and flowering plants? | cenozoic |
some of the best evidence that species have changed over time is the presence of what? | vistigial body parts |
who observed that organisms not only had adapted to their environment but also had passed on those adaptations to their young? | Jean-Baptiste Lamarck |
Lamarck proposed that evolution occurs through what 3 basic steps? | 1. organisms are born with certain traits
2. over the course of an organism's life, these traits gradually change due to pressures in the environment
3. the changes that occurred during an organism's life are passed on to its young |
when plumes of molten rock from the Earth's interior form new crust on the surface and push plates away from each other, this creates a what? | ridge |
the plates that are pushed away from each other may slip underneath another plate, pulling one plate down and forming a what? | trench |
sometimes, molten rock ruptures a tectonic plate, forming a what? | hot spot |
earthquakes generally occur at ruptures in Earth's surface where two plates meet, called what? | fault |