7.1: Introduction to Natural Selection Flashcards
What is natural selection?
The process through which organisms adapt to their given environment in order to achieve a greater chance of survival and reproduction
How does natural selection lead to evolution?
Natural selection means that the organisms better suited to live in the environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. Over time, the organisms with the favorable alleles will be able to produce the most and the overall species will begin to evolve.
What is Darwin’s theory of natural selection?
Populations of living organisms adapt and change according to their environment.
What does differential survival mean?
There are phenotypes that are better suited to their environment, so they are more likely to survive.
Why do organisms require competition for limited resources to allow for natural selection?
The organism that is better able to get food will be able to reproduce more, so the natural selection occurs in favor of the organism that can get to the food.
What is evolutionary fitness?
The organism’s ability to survive and produce viable and successful offspring.
How is evolutionary fitness measured?
Reproductive success
What is reproductive success?
The production of offspring
How does reproductive success lead to natural selection?
If a certain adaptation allows an organism to be reproductively successful, then natural selection will occur in favor of the adaptation and make the adaptation more common..
What does biotic and abiotic mean?
Biotic-living, abiotic-nonliving
How does a biotic environment affect the direction of evolution?
Invasive species, if there is more competition for resources, then the species will evolve to be able to outcompete the other. The more essential the resources they are competing for, the faster the population will evolve.
How does an abiotic environment affect the direction of evolution?
disease, If the environment can’t support that certain adaptation, the organisms will not evolve to have that trait. The more advantageous the trait is to make use of abiotic surroundings, the more quickly it will evolve.
