Question | Answer |
adaptation | characteristic that helps an organism survive and reproduce in its environment |
Examples of adaptations | structures and behaviors for finding food, for protection and for moving from place to place |
species | group of organisms that can mate with one another to produce fertile offspring |
evolution | process by which populations accumulate inhertited changes over time |
fossils | the solidified remains or imprints of once-living organisms found in layers of rock and soil |
fossil record | supplies evidence about the order in which evolutionary changes occurred |
conditions necessary for fossils to form | organism buried in fine sediment and oxygen cannot be present |
vestigial structures | remnants of once-useful structures such as hind limbs in modern whales |
List 4 geological time scales or eras | Precambrian, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic |
Stages of sedimentary rock cycle | weathering of preexisting rock, erosion, deposition, and compaction and cementation of sediment, sedimentary rock is formed |
Charles Darwin | Theory of Evolution |
Selective breeding | farmers choose certain traits and breed only the individuals with the desired traits |
Natural selection | the process by which organisms with desired traits survive at a higher rate than organisms without the favorable traits |
traits | distinguishing qualities |
Steps of natural selection | Overproduction, genetic variation, struggle to survive, successful reproduction |
overproduction | each species produces more offspring than will survive to maturity |
genetic variation | individuals in a population have a unique combination of traits. Some will increase the chances the individual will survive and other traits decrease the chance of survival |
struggle to survive | a natural environment does not have the food, water and resources for all to survive. Some are killed by other organisms |
successful reproduction | individuals that are well adapted to their environment are more likely to survive |
mutation | changes in a gene that cause variations in a species |
generation time | the period between the birth of one generation and the birth of the next generation |
Describe the changes in the peppered moth | Dark peppered moths were easy to see on gray trees in the 1850s. After 1850 soot blackened the trees, and the pale peppered moths became easy prey |
speciation | process by which two populations can of the same species become so different that they can no longer interbreed |