Biodiversity Flashcards
(21 cards)
What is biodiversity
The range of living organisms and their environments and ecosystems
What is the naming and classifying of living things based on physical and biochemical characteristics called?
Taxonomy - Linnaean Classification System
Taxa
Any group in a biological cllassification into which related organisms are classified
Did Kennedy Prefer Capitalism Or Fascism Generally Speaking?
Domain
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
What makes a species?
A group of similar organisms whose members can interbreed with each other in the natural environments to prouce viable, fertile offspring
Reproductive Isolation
Inability to successfuly interbreed due to behavioural, structural or physiological features.
parthenogenesis
reproduction from an ovum without fertilisation in animals
homologous structures - indicate shared ancestry
similar structures with slightly different functions
divergent evolution
evolution that leads to organisms becoming different in form to their common ancestor
analagous structures
similar structures with similar functions due to similarities in environmental selection pressures
convergent evolution
the independent development of similarities between species as a result of having similar ecological roles and selection pressures
vestigial structures
structures with no apparent function but which may have had a function in an ancestral species
phylogeny
the evolutionary history of an organism
cladistics
a method of grouping organisms that uses evolutionary lines of descent rather than structural similarities
cladogram
phylogenetic tree is a branching diagram showing the evolutionary relationships between species
Three assumptions of cladistics
- Any group of organisms are related by descent from a common ancestor
- There is a bifurcating pattern -meaning new organisms arise when existing population divides into two groups (scientists argue this)
- Changes in characteristics occurs over time in lineages
plesiomorphic
the orginal characteristic shared by two or more taxa
apomorphic
a special trait or characteristic derived from the original characteristic that is unique to a species/taxa
clade
a group of organisms that share a common ancestor and all of its evolutionary descendants
karyotype
description of the number and arrangement of chromosomes present in the cell - different for each species
Where are circular strands of DNA found in eukaryotes
Mitochondria
