Term | Definition |
Charles Darwin | English naturalist. He studied the plants and animals of South America and the Pacific islands, and in his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) set forth his theory of evolution. Know as the Father of Evolution |
Convergent Evolution | Process by which unrelated organisms independently evolve similarities when adapting to similar environments |
Adaptive Radiation | An evolutionary pattern in which many species evolve from a single ancestral species |
Sexual Selection | A form of selection in which individuals with certain inherited characteristics are more likely than other individuals to obtain mates. |
Analogous Structures | Body parts that share a common function, but not structure |
Co-evolution | Process by which two species evolve in response to changes in each other |
Survival of the Fittest | Process by which individuals that are better suited to their environment survive and reproduce most successfully; also called natural selection |
Vestigial Structures | remnant of a structure that may have had an important function in a species' ancestors, but has no clear function in the modern species. |
Evidence of Evolution | fossil record, bio-geography, homologous structures of living organisms, embryo development, and DNA evidence |
Molecular Evidence | The universal genetic code and homologous molecules such as genes and proteins provide evidence of common descent. |
Allele Frequency | Number of times that an allele occurs in a gene pool compared with the number of alleles in that pool for the same gene |
Genetic Drift | A change in the allele frequency of a population as a result of chance events rather than natural selection. |
Fitness | Physical & Behavioral traits that make an organism more likely to reproduce in their environment |
Stabilizing Selection | Natural selection that favors intermediate variants by acting against extreme phenotype |
Disruptive Selection | Natural selection in which individuals on both extremes of a phenotype range survive or reproduce more successfully than do individuals with intermediate phenotype. |
Punctuated Equilibrium | Pattern of evolution in which long stable periods are interrupted by brief periods of more rapid change |
5 Conditions of Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium | no mutation, no natural selection, random mating, large pops to prevent genetic drift, no migration in or out of the population |
Evolution | Change in a kind of organism over time; process by which modern organisms have descended from ancient organisms. |
Adaption | A characteristic that improves an individual's ability to survive and reproduce in a particular environment. |
Natural Selection | A process in which individuals that have certain inherited traits tend to survive and reproduce at higher rates than other individuals because of those traits in a particular. |
Artificial Selection | Selective breeding of plants and animals to promote the occurrence of desirable traits in offspring |
Homologous Structures | Structures that are similar in different species due to common ancestry |
Speciation | Formation of new species |
Divergent Evolution | when two or more species sharing a common ancestor become more different over time |
Cladogram | A diagram that is based on patterns of shared, derived traits and that shows the evolutionary relationships between groups of organisms |
Clade | evolutionary branch of a cladogram that includes a single ancestor and all its descendants |
Fossil Record | Chronological collection of life's remains in sedimentary rock layers |
Embryology | The branch of zoology studying the early development of living things. |
Bio-geography | The study of where organisms live now and where they and their ancestors lived in the past |
Gene Pool | All the genes, including all the different alleles for each gene, that are present in a population at any one time |
Gene Flow | Movement of alleles into or out of a population due to the migration of individuals to or from the population |
Bottleneck | A change in allele frequency following a dramatic reduction in the size of a population |
Directional Selection | Pathway of natural selection in which one uncommon phenotype is selected over a more common phenotype |
Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium | theory of a stable, nonevolving population in which frequency of alleles do not change; only occurs in large, isolated populations with random mating, and no natural selection or mutations |
Genetic Variation | The variety of different types of genes in a species or population. |